Preamble

The House met at Half-past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

HUDDERSFIELD CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Local Government (Manpower)

Major Guy Lloyd: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland why he refused the request of the District Councils Association in Scotland that the district councils should be represented on the special committee which is to investigate the question of local government manpower and other local government matters in Scotland.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Woodburn): The main purpose of the Local Government Manpower Committee is to seek economies in the use of manpower and to examine the possibility of relaxing departmental supervision of local authorities. It is unlikely, in view of their very limited functions, that district councils will have any real interest in the work of the Committee, but I have no doubt that the Association will be brought into consultation if necessary.

Herring Fishing (Gear)

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what reply has been given by the Home Department to the letter from the Scottish Herring Producers' Association of 12th July, requesting assistance for herring fishermen in obtaining fishing gear.

Mr. Woodburn: The Association have been informed that there are no powers

under which the 50 per cent. subsidy they requested towards the cost of gear and coal for herring fishing can be paid, but, in case of need, grants up to one-third of the cost may be made to individual fishermen for the provision of gear. Costs of fishing gear and of fuel are taken into account when the maximum prices for herring are fixed by the Minister of Food, who is, I understand, considering whether any revision is justified in the light of the representations made by the Association.

Mr. Stewart: In view of the latter part of the Minister's answer, which is important, does the right hon. Gentleman mean that, possibly, a special meeting might be arranged between his Department, the Ministry of Food and the fishermen to deal with this matter?

Mr. Woodburn: The Association has made representations, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food is considering these. That being so, I think we had better await the negotiations.

Housing

Mr. Gilzean: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if his attention has been drawn to the proposals of the Corporation of Edinburgh to build houses in the Ravelston area of a type comparable with those already existing in that area; and if it is in accordance with the policy of the Government to use public money to build highly assessed houses at present.

Mr. Woodburn: No proposals have been submitted to me by the Corporation, and I cannot, therefore, express an opinion in this particular case.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF PENSIONS

Widows

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he will now say what is the result of his consideration of the claim for pensions on behalf of widows who were married after their husbands were discharged from the Forces in the First World War, and who subsequently became widows before 2nd September, 1939; how many widows are affected; and what would be the annual cost of granting this claim.

The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Marquand): As I promised in the Debate on 26th April last, I have circulated through the usual channels a full answer to this and a number of other points raised by a deputation from ex-Service organisations. The Government have not been able to alter the provisions of the Royal Warrant to give further retrospective effect to the change which they introduced in 1946 in this respect. The number of widows who might be able successfully to establish a claim if the date bar were removed is unknown. Consequently, no estimate of cost can be made.

Mr. Hynd: As the number of widows affected is not likely to be very great, could not my right hon. Friend consider straightening out this bulge?

Mr. Marquand: I have considered it very carefully and at great length with my advisory committee in every possible way, but I have come to the reluctant conclusion that the expenditure of manpower involved is too great to justify my making that change.

Mr. Lipson: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it reasonable, before rejecting a claim, at least to make sure how much it would be likely to cost, and will he not reconsider investigating the cost of it?

Mr. Marquand: I have made every possible investigation into this matter.

Disabled Ex-Service Men (Motor Cars)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Pensions (1) to how many disabled ex-Service men he sent a circular letter, reference MZ/272389, offering to provide the recipient with a motor car; and how many of these letters were sent to persons for whom he has now decided not to provide a motor car;
(2) how many motor cars have been provided by his Department for disabled ex-Service men; how many motor cars he now holds; how many are on order; and how many more he intends to order.

Mr. Marquand: In July, 1948, I undertook to supply over a period of two years not more than 1,500 motor cars, in lieu of the tricycles they now have, to pensioners in three strictly defined categories. The whole of the 1,500 have

been ordered and are being regularly delivered according to promise. Up to date 414 have been handed over to pensioners in one or other of the three categories. In view of the pressing needs of the export trade, the Government are not prepared to order more at the present time. I have, however, ordered 2,000 single-seater three-wheeled all-weather motor vehicles which I described to the House on Tuesday last. These will eventually replace the present open tricycle and be available to severely disabled pensioners, not supplied with a car, but who satisfy the criteria I also described on Tuesday.
In order to ascertain the numbers who would wish to have cars 1,714 letters were sent out. Among these, 102 were sent in error to men who were not in the three categories. I deeply regret and I have already apologised for these errors, which arose from failure to recognise the exact degree of disablement of each pensioner. I estimate that if I were to supply motor cars to all pensioners of a degree of disablement equivalent to that of those who received these letters, I would require 600 motor cars in addition to those already promised. For the reasons I have given, I cannot supply these pensioners with cars within the two years. They will, however, qualify for the covered three-wheeled vehicles, which are not required for export.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In view of the fact that the number of people who were promised these cars and are now being refused them is as small as 102, is the right hon. Gentleman really saying that the needs of the export trade would be seriously prejudiced if he ordered the extra 102 cars so as to enable him to implement the promise he made?

Mr. Marquand: No, Sir. I am saying that it would be unfair to supply the 102 cars to people who were fortunate or unfortunate enought to receive a mistaken letter, when there are 600, at least, in the same category of disablement. I could not fairly supply the 102 unless I proceeded to supply the 600 and, within the two years, the needs of the export trade, especially at the present day, are so important that I feel I cannot do it.

Mr. Chetwynd: Could my right hon. Friend say how many such cars were provided before 1945?

Mr. Marquand: None, Sir.

Commander Galbraith: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with the safety of the three-wheeled vehicles? His predecessor does not seem to have been completely satisfied on that point?

Mr. Marquand: My predecessor could not have known, because the prototype has only recently been thoroughly tried out. I explained this to the House a week ago, when I said that this vehicle has been exhaustively tested by disabled men and has been found to be satisfactory.

Mr. Somerville Hastings: Does the Minister accept responsibility for the maintenance of cars even in suitable cases of those pensioners who already have them?

Mr. Marquand: A pensioner who is in one of the three categories eligible to receive a car, and who has a car of his own, may, on application, receive a grant for the maintenance of that car.

Air-Commodore Harvey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the paraplegic home at Macclesfield there are ex-Service men who are paralysed from the waist downwards and who have been promised these cars? Does this mean that they are not going to get them?

Mr. Marquand: Certainly not. It means they are going to get them. Four hundred and fourteen have already been delivered, and rapid calculation will show that we are acting strictly in accordance with the promise to give 1,500 in two years. They will get them before the two years are over, without doubt.

Sir Ralph Glyn: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether a man who has had a motor-tricycle for 15 years, who is 100 per cent. disabled and whose tricycle is now worn out, will be given preference in either having that machine repaired or in receiving a new one?

Mr. Marquand: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the position of the 102 to whom he has referred is quite different from that of men of a similar degree of disability, inasmuch as they were entitled to rely upon the promise made by his Department? Is it not a question not merely of providing a motor car but of

preserving the reputation and good faith of his Department?

Mr. Marquand: I quite agree that these men have a grievance. I regret that, and I have apologised for it in the fullest possible manner.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY

Royal Military Academy

Major Tufton Beamish: asked the Secretary of State for War how many vacancies there will be at the Royal Military Academy at the beginning of the next term; how many of these vacancies will be filled by "R" and "E" Cadets, respectively; and what steps he proposes to make the Army career more attractive to potential officers and thus overcome the present shortage of volunteers.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Shinwell): There are 300 vacancies for the next term at the Royal Military Academy. For these vacancies there were 281 "R" candidates, of whom 126 were successful. As far as can be seen, at least 134 further vacancies will be filled by "E" candidates, but this number may increase as the selection board for next term has not yet completed its task. As regards the last part of the Question, I do not accept the suggestion that the Army career is not attractive.

Major Beamish: Does not the difficulty which has been experienced in getting sufficient candidates for the Royal Military Academy disclose a very serious state of affairs indeed? May I ask the right hon. Gentleman for an assurance that he is bending every effort to improve the conditions of the Army, and that there is no intention of lowering the standards of entry?

Mr. Shinwell: The position is not quite as bad as the hon. and gallant Member suggests, because on 1st January this year the total number of accepted candidates was only 40 less than was required, and it is hoped that a smaller deficiency will occur next term. As to the general conditions, there is no doubt that they have been vastly improved.

Brigadier Head: When the Secretary of State says he is satisfied with the attractions of the Army, does that mean that he is satisfied with the present officer situation in the Army as a whole?

Mr. Shinwell: When I say I am satisfied about the conditions for officers in the Army, I do not mean that conditions are perfect. There is much that remains to be done, but we are addressing ourselves to the appropriate tasks.

Major Beamish: Does not the right hon. Gentleman take a most serious view of the fact that there is a shortage of candidates for the Royal Military Academy, or is he trying to pretend that it does not matter in the least?

Mr. Shinwell: Of course, it does matter that there is a shortage, however slender or slight that shortage may be, but nevertheless we have taken account of the fact that there are variations from year to year.

No. 1 Dress

Major Beamish: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will now issue No. 1 dress to officer cadets at the Royal Military Academy.

Mr. Shinwell: Approval has been given for officer cadets at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, to wear No. 1 dress, and instructions will shortly be issued on the subject.

Major Beamish: Does this herald the issue of the No. 1 dress to the Army as a whole, or does it mean the abandonment of the absurd rule that until the whole of the Army is issued with it, it will not be issued at all?

Mr. Shinwell: All that this reply indicates is that we have gone some way on the road.

Colonel Ropner: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Territorial Army will be issued with No. 1 dress?

Mr. Shinwell: Not at present.

Overseas Service (Training)

Mr. Longden: asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that 22097647 Sapper R. Morrin, E.P.D., Mombasa, Kenya, was called up on 3rd December, 1948; had two months' training, spread over three different camps; after a fortnight's embarkation leave, was sent abroad on 8th March; and if he is satisfied that this short period of actual training at home, prior to being sent to a distant Colony, is adequate and in accordance with his instructions.

Mr. Shinwell: I understand that Sapper Motrin was called up on 4th November, 1948, and not 3rd December, as stated in the Question. When he embarked for the Middle East he had completed his basic training and trade training, and had just over four months' service.

Mr. Longden: In any case, why does the right hon. Gentleman continue to send out to distant parts of the Empire these raw young conscripts to fulfil tasks for which only Regulars are fitted?

Mr. Shinwell: In the particular case referred to in the Question the incident occurred before I decided to change the regulations. As the regulations are at present, we are not sending raw and untrained men out to any part of the world. In our opinion, they are being trained in all basic tasks.

Mr. Longden: Will the right hon. Gentleman have those who have already been sent out sent back?

Mr. Shinwell: Certainly not.

Fever Outbreak (Mombasa)

Mr. Longden: asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware of the fact that, since May last, a typhoid epidemic has been raging in the British Army Camp at McKinnon Road, Mombasa, Kenya, from which disease two British and five African soldiers have died, whilst some 85 other cases of infection have been reported; and if, in view of the danger to all the other men in the camp and the anxiety now being felt by their parents and many other citizens, he will either have them brought home or removed from the area of contact.

Mr. Shinwell: I have now received a full report on this unfortunate outbreak in East Africa. A total of 88 cases of typhoid and enteric group fevers were reported up to 8th July, of which 34 were British and 54 African. I regret to say that, in addition to the deaths of the two British soldiers which I mentioned on 24th May, four African soldiers have died. I would like to take this opportunity of expressing my sympathy with the relatives.
The outbreak originated amongst the African troops, but the source of infection cannot be definitely stated. The water supply was thoroughly investigated and


it seems most unlikely that it was the cause. Everything possible has been done to ensure that the hygiene of the area is fully up to standard and to ensure that all troops and civilian employees are fully protected by inoculation. A good number of civilians in the area have also been inoculated. The outbreak is now under control, although the possibility of further cases occurring cannot be ruled out.

Lord John Hope: Is it a fact that before this outbreak the occupants of this camp had not been inoculated? Does it mean that these precautions have been taken only because of this outbreak?

Mr. Shinwell: I could not say, without notice.

Discharge by Purchase

General Sir George Jeffreys: asked the Secretary of State for War how many soldiers of the Regular Army have been permitted to purchase their discharge from the Service during the past 12 months; and under what conditions is discharge by purchase now granted.

Mr. Shinwell: The number of soldiers who purchased their discharge during the year ended 31st May, 1949, was 4,110. This figure includes 700 who obtained their discharge free either on compassionate grounds or after 16 years' service.
The conditions governing discharge by purchase are laid down in Army Council Instruction 768 of 1948, a copy of which is in the Library of the House. These instructions are amended from time to time in accordance with manpower requirements, and for this reason it has recently been necessary to impose for the time being a ban on the purchase of discharge of all soldiers having more than three months' but less than three years' service.

Married Quarters (Private Houses)

Mr. Bramall: asked the Secretary of State for War what arrangements have been made for taking over private houses rented by officers or other ranks as military quarters; and how many officers and other ranks respectively, have taken advantage of these arrangements.

Mr. Shinwell: Arrangements have been made for the hiring of furnished houses on short lease for use as married officers' and married soldiers' quarters where the existing number of married quarters is below the scale of entitlement. These arrangements only apply to new hirings. Houses already rented by officers and soldiers privately will not be taken over, but they may be considered for hiring under this scheme when the private agreement expires. So far, 77 houses have been hired for officers and 10 for other ranks.

Mr. Bramall: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the scales of rent paid are adequate, in proportion to the present size of rents, to ensure that proper advantage can be taken of this scheme?

Mr. Shinwell: We are providing a maximum of £250 annually, and, on the whole, that is a fair figure.

Major Beamish: Would it not be far better to pay these sums of money to officers who cannot be allotted married quarters? Would it not save a great deal of work? Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the owners of private houses are naturally most reluctant to rent their houses to the War Department without being able to choose their tenants? Would he look into the whole question again?

Mr. Shinwell: I have made very careful inquiry, personally and otherwise, and I understand that the officers are very satisfied with this present arrangement.

Major Beamish: Is there any possible objection to paying the sum of money which these arrangements cost the War Department, to the officers and other ranks to enable them to find their own married quarters? Would that not save work?

Mr. Shinwell: It is very much better to provide a quarter, whether an Army quarter or a private quarter, and for the War Office to pay for it, than to allow an officer cash so that he can obtain it himself. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why? "] Because the War Office can handle it much better.

Mr. Bramall: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great difficulties of this scheme in an area such as Aldershot and Camberley where many officers and other


ranks are wanting houses which are not obtainable at the amount which the War Office is prepared to pay?

Mr. Shinwell: Of course, if houses are not obtainable up to a maximum rent of £250 I am afraid we must seek some alternative.

Building, Stanmore

Mr. Skinnard: asked the Secretary of State for War how many squatter families remain on land belonging to his Department at Kestrel Grove, Stanmore; how many huts there are in habitable condition; and when building of a permanent character on the site is expected to begin.

Mr. Shinwell: Two unauthorised families are occupying the two remaining habitable huts belonging to my Department at Kestrel Grove, Stanmore. Planning in connection with the building, of permanent accommodation is proceeding, but I am not yet able to say when it will begin.

Mr. Skinnard: asked the Secretary of State for War what housing accommodation now requisitioned by his Department is expected to be released as the result of the buildings planned to be erected at Kestrel Grove, Stanmore.

Mr. Shinwell: The erection of permanent accommodation at Kestrel Grove, Stanmore, forms only part of a larger re-accommodation plan. When this part of the scheme is completed it will be possible for my Department to release two requisitioned properties.

Water Carting (Rural Areas)

Commander Maitland: asked the Secretary of State for War if he has considered the request made to him by the hon. and gallant Member for Horncastle, to make available water carriers, or other vehicles suitable for carrying water, to local authorities to assist them in carting water for the uses of country people living in areas where wells are dried up and there is no water supply; and what answer he has made to this request.

Mr. Shinwell: There is a limited number of water trucks which could, if

necessary, be made available at the request of the Ministry of Health for this purpose. I hope, however, that the recent break in the weather will obviate any such request.

Commander Maitland: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that in many districts the break in the weather will not fill the wells? It will take some considerable time for that to happen. Would the right hon. Gentleman communicate with the hon. and gallant Member for Horn-castle so that he may know how his local authorities can get this service?

Mr. Shinwell: Of course, the Army cannot be expected to provide everything; we do our best in the limited circumstances.

Cadet Camps

Mr. Arthur Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for War, if he is aware that all arrangements were made for the annual camp for the cadets to take place at the Languard Camp, Felixstowe, many cadets, officers and others making arrangements to take their summer holidays in order to attend this camp, and now, at the last moment, they have been informed that the numbers are to be drastically reduced, the camp transferred to Walton, and the cadets to run this camp themselves; what was the reason for this; and what action he proposes to take to enable the cadets to have their camp, as originally arranged.

Mr. Shinwell: Owing to the recent calls upon the services of the Army, it will not be possible to provide all the military assistance for the cadet camps this year which would have been given. Consequently, the arrangements for these camps have had to be modified, and a few, which could not be manned, have had to be cancelled. Every effort has been made in those cases to make alternative arrangements for the same dates, but, unfortunately, these will not cover in this case all the cadets who were going to camp. I should like to express to the officers and cadets concerned my regret that circumstances outside my control have caused so much disappointment.

Mr. Lewis: Can my right hon. Friend say why he did not allow the cadets to run the camp themselves, as they originally requested, particularly in view


of the fact that I understand that, so far as Walton camp is concerned, they are going to man it themselves?

Mr. Shinwell: It is quite impossible in every case to allow the cadets to run the camps, because we have to provide catering arrangements which are not within the compass of the cadets' organisation.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTH-EAST DEVELOPMENT AREA PLAN

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the Minister of Town and Country Planning whether he will make a statement on the recently published North-East Development Plan drawn up by Sir George Pepler and Mr. P. W. MacFarlane.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Mr. King): The plan for the North-East Development Area was prepared by the consultants at my request. Its primary function will be to assist the planning authorities in the North-East in surveying their areas and preparing development plans, as required by the Town and Country Planning Act. 1947. A limited number of copies of an interim edition of the plan have already been duplicated and distributed to the local authorities and Government departments concerned, to Members for local constituencies, and to the Press, and in due course a printed edition will be issued for sale to the public. Meanwhile my right hon. Friend has asked the local planning authorities to send him their comments when they have had an opportunity of examining the consultants' proposals.

Mr. Chetwynd: In order that there may be no conflict between the overall plan and the individual plans required from each authority under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, would my hon. Friend ask his right hon. Friend to set up a joint planning authority to co-ordinate all the different plans?

Mr. King: I do not think that will be necessary.

Brigadier Thorp: Is there mention of Berwick-upon-Tweed and the north of Northumberland in this plan?

Mr. King: I do not think there is.

Brigadier Thorp: Why not?

Mr. Turton: Do I understand that the Minister has approved or disapproved of this plan?

Mr. King: The Minister has not yet given any decision. The matter is under consideration. He is seeking the views of the local authorities, who now have a copy of the plan.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL INSURANCE

Local Advisory Committees

Mr. Tom Brown: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he is now in a position to state the number of local advisory committees he has decided to set up; the regions in which they will operate; the number of persons on each committee; and the names of the organisations or institutions which have been invited to submit the names of suitable persons for the newly-formed advisory committees.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. Steele): My right hon. Friend is proposing to set up about 230 committees under the National Insurance Act—186 in England, 26 in Scotland and 18 in Wales. Membership will vary from area to area. It will generally be about 20, and will include persons appointed after consultation with organisations of employers and workers, local authorities, friendly societies and other bodies with special local knowledge and experience.

Mr. Brown: Why is it that this delay has taken place in setting up these advisory committees, upon whose decision depends the welfare of the old age pensioners, who, in the main, will be the people who will have to apply to the advisory committees? What has caused the delay?

Mr. Steele: I think my hon. Friend is confusing the committees to be set up under the National Insurance Act and the committees under the National Assistance Act. So far as the National Assistance Act is concerned, those committees are being reconstituted at the present time. As to the committees under the National Insurance Act, I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate that we have had a tremendous


job indeed in launching the new scheme. We are, of course, setting up the committees at the first opportunity.

Mr. Brown: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that we were informed many months ago that there would be co-ordination between his Department and the National Assistance Board in speeding up the formation of these advisory committees? Will he tell us what has caused the delay?

Mr. Steele: So far as the National Insurance committees are concerned, we felt that it was necessary to have dual membership between them and the committees under the National Assistance Act, so that those committees would be acquainted with the work of the social services as a whole.

Area Officers (Instructions)

Mr. Tom Brown: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he will inform the House of the number of instructions sent out to area officers by the National Assistance Board; and if he will have copies of the same placed in the Library of this House for right hon. and hon. Members to see.

Mr. Steele: The Board, in common with other departments with local staffs, provide their officers with a code of executive directions, which is extended or varied from time to time as circumstances require. It is not possible to state a particular number. As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Randall) on 16th December last.

Mr. Brown: Is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that some of the area officers, and particularly in his own country of Scotland, are now telling old people who come before them that they have had secret instructions from the National Assistance Board not to carry out the regulations; and is he further aware that when this House passes regulations it is the duty of the Department to carry them out, whether they are good, bad or indifferent?

Mr. Steele: In general, hon. Members and the organisations concerned have paid tribute to the work of the Assistance Board officers.

Mr. Brown: So have I.

Mr. Steele: Therefore, what my hon. Friend says is rather contrary to the evidence we have at the present time. Instructions from the National Assistance Board to the officers can only be instructions on the manner and method of carrying out any regulations passed by this House. If my hon. Friend has any evidence of the facts of which he speaks, I think he ought to give it to me.

Mr. Keenan: If, as the Minister said, I think a week or two ago, the decision of this House as to the scales of assistance is to be implemented, can the Parliamentary Secretary say why we should not be told the manner in which they are being implemented by means of instructions? That is all we are asking for.

Lord John Hope: As the answer will probably be very long, could it not be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT?

Mrs. Jean Mann: Could the Parliamentary Secretary say whether the instructions which vary from time to time do so at the behest of the Treasury?

Mr. Steele: The instructions are contained in a code of procedure which enables the officers of the Assistance Board to carry out the regulations laid down by this House. If my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) has any evidence in his possession that Assistance Board officers are not complying with the wishes of this House, I think he ought to give it to us so that it may be investigated.

Mr. Brown: Is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that this is a very important matter; that a paper published in his own country made a very bitter complaint about the attitude of area officers and the special instructions which they were carrying out; and will he see to it that his Department gets acquainted with what is being done in England, Scotland and Wales by the area officers?

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Negotiating Machinery

Mr. J. Langford-Holt: asked the Minister of Labour what steps he proposes to take to speed up the negotiating machinery in industry.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Ness Edwards): This is a matter for the two sides of industry who, I am sure, are aware of the need to avoid delay.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that about 75 per cent. of all the strikes which have taken place in the last few years have been attributed by the strike leaders and the men to the length of time taken by this negotiating machinery?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I do not accept that conclusion. The fact is that the machinery is there, and if worked properly there is no reason for delay.

Dock Workers

Sir Ralph Glyn: asked the Minister of Labour which docks are subject to the terms of the Dock Labour Scheme; and how many docks involving how many men work under conditions different to the Dock Labour Scheme as applied to the London docks.

Mr. Ness Edwards: As the answer is long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir R. Glyn: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether there is a larger number of dockers working under a system other than the London system?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I should say that a substantial part of the dock workers in this country come under the National Dock Labour Scheme, which is precisely the same as the London Port Scheme.

Following is the answer:

PORTS TO WHICH THE NATIONAL DOCK LABOUR SCHEME RELATES

A. Ayrshire ports:
The following ports:

(1) Ardrossan.
(2) Ayr.
(3) Irvine.
(4) Troon.

B. The Port of Barrow-in-Furness.

C. Bristol and Severn ports:
The following ports:

(1) Bristol.
(2) Sharpness.
(3) Gloucester.

D. Cornwall ports:
The following ports:

(1) Charlestown.
(2) Falmouth.
(3) Fowey.
(4) Hayle.
(5) Mousehole.
(6) Newlyn.
(7) Par.
(8) Penryn.
(9) Penzance.
(10) Porthleven.
(11) Portreath.
(12) St. Ives.
(13) Truro.

E. Cumberland ports:
The following ports:

(1) Maryport.
(2) Silloth.
(3) Whitehaven.
(4) Workington.

F. East Anglian ports:
The following ports:

(1) Boston.
(2) Great Yarmouth.
(3) Kings Lynn.
(4) Lowestoft.
(5) Sutton Bridge.
(6) Wisbech.

G. East Coast of Scotland ports:
The following ports:

(1) Aberdeen.
(2) Bo'ness.
(3) Burntisland.
(4) Dundee and Tayport.
(5) Grangemouth.
(6) Kirkcaldy.
(7) Leith and Granton.
(8) Methil.

H. The Port of Fleetwood.

I. The Port of Glasgow.

J. The Port of Greenock.

K. The following ports:

(1) Grimsby.
(2) Immingham.

L. The following ports:

(1) Hull.
(2) Goole.

M. The Port of Ipswich.

N. The Port of London.

O. The Medway and Swale ports:

(1) The Medway Conservancy.
(2) Queenborough Harbour Authority.
(3) Milton Creek Conservancy.
(4) Faversham Navigation Commission.
(5) Whitstable.

P. The following ports:

(1) Birkenhead.
(2) Bromborough.
(3) Ellesmere Port.
(4) Garston.
(5) Liverpool.
(6) Manchester.
(7) Partington.
(8) Preston.
(9) Runcorn.
(10) Weston Point.
(11) Widnes.

Q. The following ports:

(1) Middlesbrough.
(2) The Hartlepools.

R. The Port of Plymouth.

S. The following ports:

(1) Southampton.
(2) Poole and Hanworthy.
(3) Weymouth.

T. South Wales ports:
The following ports:

(1) Barry.
(2) Cardiff and Penarth.
(3) Llanelly.
(4) Newport.
(5) Port Talbot.
(6) Swansea.

U. Tyne and Wear ports:
The following ports:

(1) Newcastle.
(2) Gateshead.
(3) North Shields.
(4) South Shields.
(5) Sunderland.
(6) Blyth.
(7) Seaham Harbour.
(8) Dunstan.

The number of ports which are classified as ports for the purposes of the industrial agreements of the National Joint Council for the Port Transport Industry, and which are not included in the National Dock Labour Scheme is 34. No exact information is available as to the number of men employed on dock work in these ports, but they are all small ports.

Following is the List:

List of ports classified by the National Joint Council for the Port Transport Industry for its industrial agreements, but which are not included in the National Dock Labour Scheme.

Greater Ports:


Lancaster.
Stockton.


Portsmouth.



Smaller Ports:


Arbroath.
Isle of Man ports.


Aberystwyth.
Lerwick.


Banff.
Montrose.


Barnstaple.
Newhaven.


Berwick.
Padstowe.


Bridgwater.
Peterhead.


Briton Ferry.
Ramsgate.


Carlisle.
Scilly Isles.


Colchester.
Stornoway.


Cowes.
Teignmouth.


Dumfries.
Torquay.


Exeter.
Whitby.


Exmouth.
Whitstable.


Frazerburgh.
Wick.


Hayle.
Wigtown.


Inverness.

Sir R. Glyn: asked the Minister of Labour how many men are now employed as registered dock workers; how does this figure compare with 1938, in both instances, including workers at all docks and harbours in the United Kingdom but excluding Northern Ireland; and

what are the trades unions concerned with this type of labour.

Mr. Ness Edwards: As the answer is long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:

Figures supplied by the National Dock Labour Board show that 74,767 men were on the Dock Workers' Register as at 2nd July, 1949. Comparable figures are not available for 1938, but at the middle of that year the number of insured men aged 16–64 employed in the port transport industry as a whole was about 95,000.

The trade unions concerned are:

Transport and General Workers Union.

National Union of General and Municipal Workers.

National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers.

Scottish Transport and General Workers Union, comprising the Workers' side of the National Joint Council for the Port Transport Industry.

In addition, the Watermen, Lightermen, Tugmen, and Bargemen's Union represents the classes of workers described in that title.

Football Pools Canvassers

Mr. S. O. Davies: asked the Minister of Labour, in view of the Control of Engagement Order, how many canvassers employed by football pools organisations were engaged through the employment exchanges.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The information is not available. Exchanges would only offer such employment in the absence of suitable vacancies on essential work.

Mr. Davies: Are we to understand from that answer that the Ministry of Labour have no information as to the manner in which men and women are recruited to do their work as canvassers for these pools organisations; and is not the Ministry of Labour interested in the manner in which labour of this kind is being used in this country?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I am afraid that my hon. Friend has come to the wrong conclusion. A large number of people who are employed by the pools are completely outside the Control of Engagement Order, so that naturally the Ministry cannot keep track of them.

Mr. S. O. Davies: asked the Minister of Labour how many male and female football pools canvassers are now employed in England, Scotland and Wales by Littlewoods and Bonds Pools, Vernon Pools and Screen Pools, respectively.

Mr. Ness Edwards: The information desired by my hon. Friend is not available.

Mr. Davies: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, and in order to give the Ministry of Labour some information which they ought already to possess, I beg to give notice that I shall try to raise this question on the Adjournment.

Hostel, Staverton

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware of the hardship caused to residents at the National Service Hostel at Staverton, near Cheltenham, by the increase in the charge of 5s. per week; and if he will arrange for an investigation into its administration, with a view to seeing if economies can be effected, which will make the increase unnecessary.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I cannot accept that the increase in charges at industrial hostels has caused any special hardship. Except for the reduction in charge at the sub-standard hostels, there is no differentiation in charge between different hostels.

Mr. Lipson: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that this means an increase to these people in the cost of living of 5s. a week at a time when the Chancellor has asked that there shall be no increase in wages; and are not the Government interested in the administration of these hostels which have been subsidised at the rate of £1,800,000 per year?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has not really got the point. The Government have been subsidising these hostels, and the charges in the hostels compare very favourably with the charges in private homes, but the Government ought not to be asked to go on subsidising this special set of workers, and they are now being asked to pay an economic price.

Mr. Lipson: I have asked not for an increase in the subsidy but for an inquiry into the administration. What is the objection to an inquiry into the administration?

Mr. Ness Edwards: These men now pay 35s. a week, which is much less than they would have to pay in private homes in this country for the same facilities. In view of that, I do not think that an inquiry is really warranted.

Mr. R. S. Hudson: In view of the supplementary answers the right hon. Gentleman has given, is he aware that 35s. a week is already substantially in excess of the price a farmer in this country is allowed to charge per week for keeping a man; and how does he expect these men to keep a home in some other town and also pay 35s. a week to a hostel.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman missed part of my main answer, which was that the substandard hostels have a much lower charge, and most of the sub-standard hostels are in the agricultural areas.

Mr. Hudson: The right hon. Gentleman said that 35s. is substantially less than the charge made in private homes. Is he not aware that farmers have private homes and that they are allowed to charge only 35s.?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I was referring to charges in industrial hostels which are situated in industrial areas. I think that 35s. is less than the charge in the usual urban area.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that the residents in these hostels get only two meals a day and three meals on Sundays; that they have to get extra meals outside for which they pay—1s. 4d. at midday, and 8d. for a snack at supper time—which brings their expenditure up to £2 7s. 8d. per week; and will my right hon. Friend inquire into that?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I do not accept those conclusions. I have been round many of these hostels, and I must say that the State is giving the residents of these hostels a very good deal indeed.

Oral Answers to Questions — AIR CHARTER COMPANIES (WAGES)

Mr. Mikardo: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that some air charter companies, of whom details have been sent to him, which are receiving contracts from a number of Government Departments are violating the provisions of Section 41 of the Civil Aviation Act, 1946, by paying wages below those of the standards of the Airways Corporations; and what action he proposes to take in the matter.

Mr. Ness Edwards: I have seen the letter from my hon. Friend alleging that certain air charter companies are not complying with the requirements of Section 41 of the Civil Aviation Act, 1946, regarding terms and conditions of employment. The matter has not been reported to my right hon. Friend by the parties, but I am communicating with the Minister of Civil Aviation and will write my hon. Friend at a later date.

Mr. Mikardo: Whilst thanking my right hon. Friend for that promise, may I ask him whether he will bear in mind that there is a second question in this Question to which he has not referred; that it is not only a question of the violation of Section 41 of the Act, but that the real point is that some Government Departments are conniving at this violation. Will he look into that as well?

Mr. Ness Edwards: I cannot accept that conclusion. We must first of all investigate the position to see whether they are really violating the terms and conditions of employment. If that is so, then subsequent action will be taken.

Brigadier Peto: Because the British Airways Corporations and other nationalised industries are running at a loss, is it necessary to ensure that all private enterprise companies which compete should also run at a loss?

Mr. Ness Edwards: The losses should not be taken out of the wages of the workers.

Oral Answers to Questions — SEVERN BARRAGE (MODEL)

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Lord President of the Council, whether the new tidal model of the proposed Severn

Barrage has now been completed; and whether he can now make a report on the matter.

Mrs. Middleton: asked the Lord President of the Council, what progress has been made with the model of the estuary of the River Severn, which is being constructed in order to determine whether the proposal to harness the tidal powers of the Severn for the production of electricity by means of the construction of a barrage across the estuary is practicable.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. William Whiteley): I have been asked to reply. Preliminary work is being done towards the building of the model of the estuary of the River Severn; the building itself will begin when the new hydraulic research station is ready. As my right hon. Friend told the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Peter Freeman) on 12th May, 1949, a site for the station has been chosen and negotiations for its acquisition are proceeding.

Mr. Freeman: Will my right hon. Friend say when this model is likely to be completed and when he will be in a position to give us a full report on the matter?

Mr. Whiteley: It is hoped that the building of the station will start early in 1950, and it should be completed in two years. The construction of the Severn large model will take probably another year after that.

Mrs. Middleton: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that if this project is carried through successfully it would be a great tribute to the enterprise and efficiency of the British engineering industry, and would he not ask my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council to push forward this project with that consideration in mind?

Mr. Whiteley: Yes, I think that consideration is very much in mind.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

War Debts (Anglo-Indian Talks)

Mr. Thomas Reid: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how the debt of Britain to India of about £1,200,000,000 contracted during the war in the defence, inter alia, of the Commonwealth and


Empire has been liquidated up to date; and if Great Britain alone by unrequited exports or otherwise has borne the cost of liquidation up to date.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Douglas Jay): Financial talks with the Government of India are at present in progress and we expect to make a statement when they are concluded.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Can the Economic Secretary say what is the proportion of this debt now liquidating, and whether it is true that out of the £1,200 million only some £200 million or £300 million now remains to be repaid?

Mr. Jay: No, Sir, that is not true. My right hon. and learned Friend thought it best to give the full details when these negotiations were complete.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: When the right hon. Gentleman talks about talks going on, does he mean a permanent settlement of this problem, or another interim release of some of these balances?

Mr. Jay: The talks are mainly devoted to another interim period.

Mr. Alfred Edwards: Are their accounts to be submitted on a contra account for services rendered during the same period? Have all these been taken into consideration?

Mr. Jay: If the hon. Gentleman is speaking of counter claims by the United Kingdom, some of these were settled under the agreement made last year.

Mr. Stokes: Will my hon. Friend ask his right hon. and learned Friend to consider sending to the Indian Government a bill for this amount for saving them from the Japanese?

Mr. Stanley: In view of the hon. Gentleman's reply to the last supplementary question, is it not a fact that we have been told on many occasions that any counter claim we have against the Indian Government in connection with the war effort has been reserved for the final talks, and is it really correct when the hon. Gentleman says that such counter claims have already been settled in last year's talks?

Mr. Jay: A most substantial counter claim on account of defence stores, pensions and other matters was settled in the agreement which was published in the White Paper last year.

Mr. Stanley: Is the Chancellor making no claim against this debt which has been incurred in the defence of India and for the effort we made in keeping India safe?

Mr. T. Reid: Has any request been made to the Governments of India, Ceylon, Pakistan or any other Government to assist in liquidating this debt, instead of leaving the whole charge to fall upon the unfortunate British taxpayer?

Mr. A. Edwards: I think the second answer by the Economic Secretary to the right hon. Member for West Bristol (Mr. Stanley) was different to the one he gave to me. Are there still counter claims to be considered?

Inland Revenue Staff, Cardiff

Mr. George Thomas: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the dissatisfaction at the Inland Revenue offices, Cardiff, due to the method pursued in selecting members of the staff for interviews by the Establishment Board; and what redress is open to those unestablished officers who feel that they have been unjustly treated.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): The answer to the first part of the Question is No, Sir. The method of selection of temporary staff in the Inland Revenue for establishment as clerical officers was agreed with the Staff Side of the Inland Revenue Departmental Whitley Council. The Board of Inland Revenue have received no representations either from individual members of the staff or from the recognised staff associations that the method adopted has proved unsatisfactory in practice.

Mr. Thomas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I have received two deputations in my constituency from these unestablished officers? If he is prepared to consider the correspondence, I will forward it to him and he will soon have abundant evidence of dissatisfaction.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Certainly, I am always willing to consider anything which


my hon. Friend cares to send to me, but I would point out that these individuals have a staff association which is very active on their behalf.

Eggs (Purchase in U.S.A.)

Mr. Hurd: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what expenditure of dollars was authorised for the purchase in the United States of hatching eggs by the Colonial Development Corporation for its poultry project in the Gambia; and why he did not insist that these eggs should be supplied from the United Kingdom.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Fourteen thousand dollars. No quantity of suitable eggs or strain was available in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Hurd: Could the Financial Secretary specify this special strain of poultry that is available from America, and is it proposed to allow the Corporation to spend still further dollars in buying another batch of these eggs?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I should want notice of the second part of that supplementary question. As to the first part, I personally could not judge, but the experts were of the opinion that these eggs had to be obtained from overseas.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: What type of expert is this who thinks we cannot produce the type of eggs to go to Gambia, especially from the county where are to be found the best poultry in the world? It is fantastic.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I would suggest that the hon. and gallant Gentleman should look at a map, and he will see that Gambia is a tropical country. This country is not.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Nor is America.

Mr. Tolley: Could my right hon. Friend say whether these eggs were fertile?

O.E.E.C. Payments (Bullion)

Mr. Stokes: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what extent settlements in gold and dollars in connection with payments agreement with the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation countries were made in bullion; and at what price per fine ounce

to each of the countries, Belgium, Switzerland and Bizone, in 1948 and first five months for 1949.

Mr. Jay: All the gold payments in question were made in bullion; but I cannot give the hon. Member details of the proportions of gold and dollars in these settlements. All our monetary settlements involving the use of gold are normally made at rates agreed between central banks, based on the United States gold buying price of 35 dollars per fine ounce and the sterling-dollar parity of exchange.

Mr. Stokes: Is my hon. Friend aware that 2,500,000 ounces of gold were involved in these transactions, and if gold had been valued at the free market price of £22 10s. per fine ounce instead of the controlled price of £8 12s. 5d. per fine ounce, instead of losing 2,500,000 ounces we should only lose 800,000 ounces? What is he going to do about it?

Mr. Jay: I think my hon. Friend's arithmetic is correct so far as I follow it.

Mr. Stokes: On a point of Order. I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter again, and again.

War Damage Claim, Plymouth

Mrs. Middleton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will cause inquiries to be made into why the War Damage Commission have refused to accept the claim for compensation submitted on behalf of Mr. W. J. George, of 5, Stokes Lane, New Street, Barbicon, Plymouth, in view of the fact that the claim is solely concerned with the replacement by clear glass of the translucent glass used for the repair of windows when first aid repairs were done to this property by the local authority during the war and of the fact that there is no conflict of evidence on this point.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I regret that my right hon. and learned Friend cannot undertake to answer Questions about individual war damage cases. I am told by the Commission that they have already informed my hon. Friend of the reasons for their decision.

Mrs. Middleton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the Debate on 18th March he made this statement:


… if the claims are and can be shown to be war damage claims, quite obviously under the law they should be accepted."?—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th March, 1949; Vol. 462, c. 2523.]
There is no doubt whatever that this is a legitimate war damage claim, and that is not denied by the War Damage Commission, If the Commission is not, therefore, prepared to recognise this claim, will the Treasury take the step of refunding to my constituent the war damage contributions which he made during the war?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Unfortunately, the final decision must rest with the War Damage Commission. It is a statutory body, and an independent body at that. I can do no more than see that the War Damage Commission is made aware of what my hon. Friend has now said.

Mr. Peter Thorneycroft: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether the same kind of principles are going to be applied in the case of insurance if it is nationalised?

Mrs. Middleton: It is obvious that if the War Damage Commission is responsible for refusing the claim, the Treasury should reimburse my constituent for his war damage contribution, and under the circumstances I ask that that should be done.

Overseas Countries (British Aid)

Mr. William Shepherd: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the combined totals of our aid to overseas countries and the redemption of sterling balances, since the end of the war.

Mr. Jay: For the first part of his Question I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) on 24th May. For the second part of his Question I would refer him to the table published on page 11 of Cmd. 7648.

Sugar (Brewing Trade)

Mr. James Hudson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the annual consumption of sugar by the brewing trade for each of the last four years.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate this answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Hudson: Not with my consent, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask my right hon. Friend whether these figures do not indicate that there is a slight reduction in the total amount of sugar allowed to the brewers, compared with pre-war usage. As there is a very large reduction in the domestic allowance of sugar, compared with pre-war usage, would my right hon. Friend say how the Chancellor of the Exchequer came to the decision that sugar for the domestic users must now be cut down whilst for the brewers it is left at the same level?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: My hon. Friend will, of course, see the complete figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT, but I can tell him that between 1947 and 1948 there has been a reduction in the sugar allocation of something like a quarter of a million hundredweights.

Mr. Hastings: May I ask whether my right hon. Friend is treating the soft-drink makers as liberally as he is treating the brewers?

Mr. Stanley: Is not the fall in the allocation of sugar to brewers due merely to the falling off there has been in the demand for beer, which falling off the Chancellor of the Exchequer is trying to put right by his Budget this year?

Following is the answer:

The estimated quantities of sugar, including the equivalent of syrup, glucose and saccharum consumed by the brewing trade for each of the last four years ended 30th September were:


1945
…
…
1,784,064 cwts.


1946
…
…
1,790,021 cwts.


1947
…
…
1,601,186 cwts.


1948
…
…
1,443,558 cwts.

I should explain that "saccharum" is a form of sugar ("invert sugar"), not saccharin, the use of which is prohibited in brewing.

National Savings (Political Propaganda)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what steps are taken to prevent the use of the machinery of the National Savings Movement for party political propaganda.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: The National Savings Committee attaches great importance to


the non-political character of the National Savings Movement and does not tolerate any infringement of this principle.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In view of his answer, will the right hon. Gentleman consider drawing the attention of that Committee to the statement made in a publication which the right hon. Gentleman would regard as reliable, "The Surrey County Clarion," about the case of a woman who uses her position as collector in the National Savings Movement to canvass for the Labour Party? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that publication suggests that other people do the same, and will he make it clear that this kind of thing will not be permitted?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: If the right hon. Gentleman will bring to my notice the facts that he has now indicated to the House, I will certainly get the National Savings Movement to look into the matter.

Mrs. Mann: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that party political propaganda by hon. Members opposite has tried to destroy the machinery of National Savings before now?

American Stage Shows (Dollar Cost)

Mr. Cooper-Key: asked the Secretary to the Treasury, how many American theatrical shows have been imported into this country during tine last 12 months; and at what cost in dollars.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Information about the number of American theatrical shows imported into the United Kingdom is not available, but during the 12 months ended 31st May, 1949, remittances to the U.S.A. by entertainment artists, including those engaged in theatrical productions, amounted to £470,000.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is my right hon. Friend aware of one case in which no fewer than 8,000 dollars were permitted for the purpose of enabling two American artists to appear for one night in a show at Olympia?

Mr. Blackburn: In view of the fact that there is some unemployment on the stage in this country, will my right hon. Friend examine very closely any applica-

tion for American dollars in this respect? After all, we can provide our own entertainment for ourselves.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Perhaps I might answer the question put by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton). The trouble is that this country cannot discriminate in these matters. It would be tantamount to setting up a censorship, and it might also mean that other countries would differentiate between our people and theirs in the same way.

Mr. Eden: is it not bad enough that we cannot buy books and pictures from other countries without being unable to have theatrical performances from other countries either?

Air-Commodore Harvey: Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that British artistes are earning valuable dollars in the United States?

Mr. Blackburn: Before my right hon. Friend answers that question, would he also bear in mind that, with the consent of the Opposition, we have introduced a policy which limits the amount of American films brought to this country? Is it not only reasonable that we should do the same in regard to live entertainment?

Mr. H. D. Hughes: Would my right hon. Friend say whether American artists who wish to be paid in ordinary sterling can be so paid, or whether they are forced to receive convertible sterling?

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

French Wines (Imports)

Mr. Keeling: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether applications from private persons to import wine from France will now be favourably considered.

The Secretary for Overseas Trade (Mr. Bottomley): Private individuals may be licensed to import two cases of wine as a bona fide unsolicited gift. Commercial imports by private individuals are not, in general, permitted.

Mr. Keeling: As we have just reduced the duty on wine in order to increase the revenue, may I ask why the Govern-


ment puts difficulties in the way of the private importer who would like to benefit the Revenue in a big way by importing a cask or a barrique and doing his own bottling?

Mr. Bottomley: We can import certain limited supplies but, for balance of payments reasons, we do not want to extend it too fully because of repercussions in other sections of the industry, and in industry generally.

Flannel Trousers (Price)

Mr. Hurd: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will state the factors that justify the increase from 32s. last year to 69s. 1d. now in the price fixed for 209F men's utility grey flannel trousers.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. John Edwards): The retail ceiling price for men's utility trousers made of cloth 209F was increased from 62s. 6d.—not 32s.—to 69s. 1d. in July of last year. The increase in price was due to the removal of the subsidy on the cloth.

Mr. Hurd: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that utility flannel trousers could be bought for 32s. last year and that they now cost the price which I have mentioned?

Mr. Edwards: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong if he supposes that trousers of this quality could have been bought last year for 32s. The lowest ceiling price for this quality—[Laughter]—I should say, of course, the controlled price—was 51s. 9d.

Mr. Henry Strauss: Is the "ceiling price" what used to be called the maximum price?

Mr. Edwards: Both expressions are in use.

Mr. Stanley: It is a deep-seated maladjustment.

U.S.S.R. (Grain Contract)

Mr. Turton: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will announce the details of the Provisional Grain Contract that has been concluded with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; and when the first cargoes of grain

under the agreement are anticipated to arrive.

Mr. Bottomley: We have reached agreement with the Soviet Government about coarse grains, but the contract is linked with the rest of the trade agreement on which negotiations are still proceeding. I would prefer to wait until they are concluded before announcing details about any particular part of the negotiation.

Mr. Turton: Will this delay delay the increase in the foodstuffs ration that the agricultural industry requires?

Mr. Bottomley: I am not talking about delay. I said that trade negotiations are still going on. This is only part of the negotiations. When the negotiations are complete, we can talk about whether it is an early settlement or a late one.

Mr. Turton: Will not the result be that the coarse grains will not arrive in this country early enough to allow the feedingstuff ration to be increased?

Mr. Bottomley: That depends upon the progress of the negotiations.

Timber Imports, Malaya

Mr. Gammans: asked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent he has now been able to increase the imports of hard and soft wood from Malaya.

Mr. Bottomley: I am glad to say that imports of hardwood from Malaya were 137,000 cubic feet in the first six months of this year as against 86,000 cubic feet during the whole of 1948. There are no softwoods of commercial significance in Malaya, though some light hardwoods are locally termed softwoods.

Mr. Gammans: If there is likely to be a still further increase will the hon. Gentleman say how the price compares with the price for the purchase of similar hardwoods in other parts of the world?

Mr. Bottomley: It is possible there may be an improvement, but on the question of price I cannot give an answer. If the hon. Gentleman will put a Question down I will endeavour to do so.

Utility Clothing

Mr. Skeffington: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether increased


quantities of utility clothing have been available in the last six months, compared with the previous six months.

Mr. J. Edwards: Figures of supplies of utility garments are not, in general, collected, but I understand that there has been some improvement, particularly as regards men's clothing.

Mr. Skeffington: Will my hon. Friend remind the President of the Board of Trade that when the matter of Purchase Tax on clothing was under consideration it was promised that supplies of tax-free utility clothing would be increased, and that this is now a matter of urgency?

Mr. Edwards: I cannot give precise figures, as we do not collect figures of clothing production. It is figures of cloth production to which I have referred my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOUNDARY COMMISSION

Sir John Mellor: asked the Minister of Health what estimated expense has been incurred by the local authorities in pursuance of the provisions of the Local Government (Boundary Commission) Act.
1945; and what purpose, in view of the pending repeal of the Act, this expense has served.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Blenkinsop): It is not possible to frame any reliable estimate, but one of the general principles laid down by regulation for the guidance of the Commission in discharging their functions under the Act of 1945 required them to take all practicable steps to discourage local authorities and other persons from incurring unnecessary expense in connection with local inquiries and other business transacted under the Act.

Sir J. Mellor: Will the Parliamentary Secretary say why the Minister did not make an earlier announcement of his intention to repeal this Act?

Mr. Blenkinsop: The last part of the hon. Gentleman's Question hardly arises, because very little expense was incurred, so far as we are aware.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. R. J. Taylor.]

Orders of the Day — NATIONAL PARKS AND ACCESS TO THE COUNTRYSIDE [MONEY] (No. 2)

Resolution reported:
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision for National Parks and for other matters, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase in the sums payable out of such moneys which is attributable to provisions of the said Act of the present Session involving payments out of the Road Fund.

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — NATIONAL PARKS AND ACCESS TO THE COUNTRYSIDE BILL

Order read for consideration, as amended (in the Standing Committee).

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Bill be re-committed to a Committee of the whole House in respect of the Amendments to Clause 2, page 2, lines 19, 20 and 32 and Clause 7, page 5, line 11, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. Silkin; in respect of Clause 9; in respect of the Amendments to Clause 12, page 9, lines 1 and 4, and Clause 13, page 10, line 14, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. Silkin; in respect of Clause 14; in respect of the Amendments to Clause 22, page 15, line 29, Clause 27, page 18, line 3, Clause 28, page 18, line 12, Clause 33, page 25, line 16, Clause 40, page 30, lines 16 and 25, and Clause 42, page 32, line 26, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. Silkin; in respect of Clause 47; and in respect of the Amendments to Clause 48, page 37, lines 32, 39 and 43, and page 38, lines 15, 20, 25, 27, 39 and 47, Clause 49, page 39, lines 16 and 20, Clause 59, page 46, lines 35 and 36, Clause 77, page 57, lines 37, 38 and 40, and page 58, lines 5 and 13, Clause 79, page 59, line 18, Clause 83, page 63, line 23, Clause 88, page 66, line 11, Clause 102, page 77, lines 9 and 23, and the new Clauses (General duties of Commission in relation to National Parks), (Power of drainage authorities to do work in nature reserves), (Liability for repair of public paths), (Private street works), (Ferries for purposes of long-distance routes), (Accommodation, meals and refreshments along long-distance routes), (Variation of approved proposals), (Penalty for displaying on footpaths notices deterring public use), (Exercise of powers under Section 13 as respects open country and waterways comprised in access orders), (Application to Isles of Scilly), standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. Silkin.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Amendment made: At end, add:
and in respect of the Amendment to Clause 83, page 63, line 30, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. William Morrison."—[Mr. W. S. Morrison.]

Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Bill immediately considered in Committee.

[Major MILNER in the Chair]

Clause 2.—(CONSTITUTION OF COMMISSION.)

3.32 p.m.

The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Silkin): I beg to move, in page 2, line 20, after "duties," to insert:
(b) loss of remunerative time, or
(c) additional expenses (other than as aforesaid) necessarily incurred by them for the purpose of enabling them to perform their duties, being expenses to which they would not otherwise have been subject.
This Amendment will enable the members of the National Parks Commission to be paid for loss of time and for other expenses properly incurred in the course of their duties. As members of the Commission are to serve unpaid, it was thought reasonable that they should be entitled to receive payment for loss of remunerative time in the same way as members of local authorities are.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 2, line 32, at the end, to add:
(8) A member of the Commission, other than the chairman or deputy chairman, shall not by reason of his membership be rendered incapable of being elected, or of sitting and voting as, a member of the House of Commons.
The effect of the last Amendment is that it may be held that membership of the National Parks Commission now becomes an office of profit under the Crown and that therefore Members of Parliament will be ineligible. On the Second Reading I expressed the hope that it would be found possible for Members of Parliament to serve on the Commission. The Amendment is therefore necessary in order that they shall not be disqualified.

Mr. Charles Williams: At the present time Members of Parliament have a fair share of work. I want to know what the Government policy is. Is it intended to encourage Members of Parliament to join this Commission or not? It is not a point on which there is a great matter of disagreement, but I think, and probably other people think, that at present it is not a good thing to encourage Members of Parliament to do


this sort of thing. Occasionally we may have someone with particular knowledge whom we might want to act on the Commission, or somebody who has had experience, such as ex-Ministers, of whom there will be a lot in a short time. What is the general opinion of the right hon. Gentleman in this matter?

Mr. Silkin: I thought that if there was a Member of Parliament who was eminently qualified to serve on the Commission, it would be a pity if he were ineligible to do so. However, I would neither encourage nor discourage, and, other things being equal, I would certainly prefer someone who could give ample time to this work.

Mr. Williams: I thank the Minister very much.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7.—(ARRANGEMENTS FOR ADMINIS- TRATION OF FUNCTIONS OF LOCAL PLANNING AUTHORITIES AS RESPECTS NATIONAL PARKS.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 5, line 11, at the end, to insert:
and where a direction under the proviso to subsection (2) of this section is for the time being in force as respects any authority, there shall be a joint advisory committee established as aforesaid for the purpose of advising that authority and all other local planning authorities whose areas include land in the Park as to the exercise of their said functions as respects the Park, or for that purpose and any other purposes for which such a committee can be so established.
This Amendment is moved in pursuance of a promise which I made on the Committee stage to ensure that there would either be a joint planning board where there were a number of authorities within the area of a national park, or a joint advisory committee. The wording of the Clause as it stood made it possible, although it was never the intention, that where there was not a joint board there would be no advisory committee.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 9.—(GENERAL DUTY OF COMMIS- SION IN RELATION TO NATIONAL PARKS.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Silkin: It is proposed later on to insert a new Clause, and we wish this Clause to be deleted.

Question put, and negatived.

Clause 12.—(PROVISION OF ACCOMMODA- TION, MEALS, REFRESHMENTS, CAMP- ING SITES AND PARKING PLACES.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 9, line 1, to leave out from "under," to "the," in line 2.
The effect of this Amendment combined with the next Amendment, in line 4, is to secure that camping sites may be provided by the local planning authorities on land in the neighbourhood of the parks and not necessarily inside the boundaries. There may be cases—I hope they will be very few—where it would be more convenient to provide the camp just outside the national park.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 9, line 4, leave out from "and," to the end of line 6, and insert:
where the local planning authority is a joint planning board, land in the neighbourhood of the Park which is in the area of any of the constituent authorities shall be treated for the purposes of the last foregoing subsection as in the area of the joint planning board, whether or not it is in that area."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13.—(IMPROVEMENT OF WATER- WAYS FOR PURPOSES OF OPEN-AIR RECREATION.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 10, line 14, at the end, to insert:
but the exercise of any power under the foregoing provisions of this section as respects such land shall be subject to the provisions in that behalf of the said Part V.
This is drafting, and in preparation for a new Clause.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14.—(RESTRICTION OF POWER UNDER TWO LAST FOREGOING SEC- TIONS TO PROVIDE SERVICES.)

Motion made, and Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and negatived.

Clause 22.—(ESTABLISHMENT OF NATURE RESERVES BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 15, line 29, at the end, to insert:
(5) A local authority may, as respects any land which is being managed as a nature reserve by the authority, enter into an agreement with any drainage authority for the exercise by the drainage authority, on such terms as to Payment or otherwise as may be specified in the agreement, of any power of doing work exercisable by the local authority under the foregoing provisions of this section.
This is self-explanatory—

Mr. W. S. Morrison: On a point of Order, Major Milner. I did not hear the right hon. Gentleman move the Amendment to leave out Clause 14.

The Chairman: I put the Question although the right hon. Gentleman did not, in fact, formally move the Amendment.

Sir Ian Fraser: On a point of Order—

The Chairman: If the hon. Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) will forgive me, it was a question of the Clause standing part, which does not require to be formally moved.

Mr. Molson: Is it not customary for the Minister to give an explanation on the Report stage why he is proposing that a Clause should be omitted?

Mr. W. S. Morrison: We had considerable discussion of this Clause in Committee, and it was a matter which exercised the minds of both sides of the Committee. The Clause, as it stood in the original draft, was attacked on both sides and there was a great deal of interest displayed. Now the right hon. Gentleman has put down a specific Amendment to leave out the Clause and I was expecting him to move it and to give some justification for moving at this stage to leave out a Clause which passed through the Committee stage and into the Bill, but he has not done so.

The Chairman: I am sorry, but we have passed that point; perhaps I was a little too speedy. The right hon. Gentleman on a previous similar Amendment said that he proposed to insert further words later. I do not know whether that is the explanation here.

[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] In any case we have passed that point and cannot discuss it now.

Mr. Silkin: In all fairness, Major Milner, I would say that the omission of this Clause is controversial. I had anticipated that there might be some discussion on it, and while I think, with great respect, that your Ruling is correct, nevertheless it might save trouble if we had some discussion on the Amendment.

Mr. Keeling: May I draw your attention, Major Milner, to the words used by the Minister on the Committee stage? In discussing this Clause he said:
I want to say, straight away, that I think the whole Clause wants looking at again. … If the right hon. Gentleman would be willing to let me look at the Clause again, he will have a further opportunity of seeing it in its amended form."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 17th May, 1949, c. 246 and 248.]
It is quite inconsistent with the spirit of that statement that we should not have a discussion here when it is proposed to omit the Clause altogether.

The Chairman: I appreciate the position, but we cannot discuss it now. We will endeavour to find an opportunity of discussion at another stage if that meets the wishes of the Committee, but I am afraid we cannot do anything at the moment and indeed I do not know how far that will be possible. Mr. Silkin.

Mr. Silkin: As I was saying, the Amendment I have just moved to Clause 22, page 15, line 29, is self-explanatory.

Mr. C. Williams: I am not clear about these words. The first time that the right hon. Gentleman moved them, or partially moved them, he said they were self-explanatory. We might be told on this occasion whether he has had any consultation with the drainage authorities as to whether they wish to have this co-operation. I imagine they do, but as the Minister has obviously worked out this matter, I want to know if there are many occasions when this is likely to happen. Particularly I would like the Minister to say whether this would cover the large rivers or tidal waters, and how he proposes to deal with them. They will come under the drainage authorities in


that they drain large areas. An answer would help greatly to clarify the position.

3.45 p.m.

Mr. McKie: I hope the right hon. Gentleman is in a position to answer the points put by my hon. Friend. I only rise because we are now on Part III of the Bill which applies specially to Scotland, and the questions which my hon. Friend has asked, cogent though they may be for England and Wales, are likely to be much more so north of the Border where we have local authorities with, in some cases, exceedingly poor rateable values, and it is those which will almost certainly be called upon to bring into existence these nature reserves. The right hon. Gentleman by this time has had considerable experience of local authorities south of the Border and, in drafting these Clauses in Part III of the Bill, I hope he has had some experience of local authorities in Scotland. I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, whom I am pleased to see on the Front Bench, was called in when such consultations were held because there can be no question but that local authorities, particularly small local authorities in Scotland, are jealous of their rights.
The right hon. Gentleman said that this Amendment is self-explanatory. I congratulate him that for once in a way the drafting of these words makes the meaning plain even to an uninstructed layman like myself. It is not always that we have intelligent words in Amendments emanating from the Government Front Bench. Still, the right hon. Gentleman ought not to seek to cloak himself with the straightforwardness of this Amendment, if I may so put it. He is a man in whom there is little guile, but if he does not answer the points put by my hon. Friend and myself he might give the impression that he is trying to cover up some sin of omission regarding adequate consultation with the local authorities.
We all agree about the necessity for these nature reserves but we do not want to see hardships imposed upon local authorities or unnecessary jealousies or frictions engendered as the result of the permissive words in this Amendment. Throughout this Parliament, in much of the legislation we have had with regard to town and country planning, points

have been made over and over again as to the necessity of safeguarding the rights of one local authority which may have another local authority or drainage authority operating within its borders. The Committee is entitled to a more lengthy explanation of these points than the right hon. Gentleman has seen fit to give.

Mr. Silkin: In view of the tremendous pressure which has been put upon me, I will gladly explain that this Amendment applies to a local authority which is proposing to manage a nature reserve. Certain work may be necessary and it may be more convenient for the drainage authority to do it than the local authority. In that case this Amendment enables the local authority to enter into an arrangement for the drainage authority to do the work and to be paid. The drainage authority will be at no loss; they will be fully paid. I do not know how often this procedure will occur, but I hope it will occur whenever it is more convenient for the work to be done by the drainage authority than by the local authority.

Mr. C. Williams: I see the advantage and am fully in favour of the Amendment. My main point was this: has the right hon. Gentleman actually had consultations with the drainage authority who, presumably, would quite easily have come in and said that they will help in this way?

Mr. Silkin: Mr. Silkin indicated assent.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. C. Williams: I should like just one explanation. We ought to know whether the Clause will cover certain extremely difficult cases of co-operation between local authorities. Take a river of such considerable beauty as the Fal, with three or four different local authorities concerned at Falmouth, Penryn and Truro, besides, perhaps, others. That area, whilst not as beautiful as the Dart, should have one authority to organise the whole area on some form of co-operation. How is that to be worked out? This matter is of vital importance to many of us. The actual case I mentioned is no longer of importance to the Under-Secretary but


it is to me and to those of us who inhabit the West country. Does the Clause cover these matters, and is it fairly easy to get local authorities together for the purpose of co-operation?

Mr. Silkin: The short answer is that the Bill does not purport to re-organise local government to that extent. The Clause deals only with local nature reserves and has nothing to do with the administration of the area. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's question is not relevant to the Clause.

Mr. C. Williams: I must contest that. We are not permanently fixing for all time certain reserves. There might be additions, and I was quoting one of them—not that I am asking for that addition or for the reverse. This matter is of importance because the area to which I referred is one of our most beautiful areas. Can the Minister assure us that he has full powers of co-ordination between local authorities?

Mr. Silkin: There are powers under the Town and Country Planning Act to combine authorities for the purposes of planning, but not for running a nature reserve. If it were convenient from a planning point of view to combine a number of authorities, that could be done or an advisory committee could be set up to cover the areas, but not purely for managing a nature reserve.

Mr. Williams: This really is a gap in the Bill.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 27.—(SURVEYS OF PUBLIC PATHS, ETC., AND PREPARATION OF DRAFT MAPS AND STATEMENTS.)

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Mr. King): I beg to move, in page 18, line 3, at the end, to add:
(7) A highway at the side of a river, canal or other inland navigation shall not be excluded from any definition contained in the last foregoing subsection by reason only that the public have a right to use the highway for purposes of navigation, if the highway would fall within that definition if the public had no such right thereover.
This is really a drafting curiosity. It might have been thought that the definitions of rights of way in Subsection (6)

were incomplete; that whilst we have defined "footpath" and "bridleway," we have omitted to define a towpath. By the Amendment, we now include this in the survey.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The hon. Gentleman's explanation of the Amendment is very curious, for the wording of the Amendment contains no reference whatsoever to a towpath. It merely says that a highway shall not cease to be a highway if the public have rights of navigation along the highway. When I first read it I was reminded of the famous "Misleading Case" written, I think, by the hon. Member the junior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Herbert), about the rights of navigation on the Thames Embankment and which rule applied, the rule of navigation or the rule of the road.
Is it not possible to find better wording than Ibis if we merely want to add "towpath" to the definition Clause? Is there any substance in the contention that the rights of navigation along a highway will make that highway cease to be a highway? I am not at present aware of any authority for that proposition; and if it is not the case that the rights of navigation along a highway alter the character of the highway to the extent that it ceases to be a highway, I cannot see why the Amendment is wanted. Its only effect, as I read it, is to provide that a highway along which the public acquire rights of navigation—presumably, because that highway is permanently covered with water—shall none the less not cease to be a highway. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to give some further explanation of this extremely curious wording. He referred to it as a curiosity, and to insert a subsection like this in a Measure dealing with national parks strikes me as a very remarkable curiosity.

Mr. King: I should have thought the position was quite clear. I used the word "towpath" colloquially. It is not enshrined in the wording of the Bill. The Amendment uses the words:
A highway at the side of a river ….
The hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) can distinguish between that and a towpath if he wishes, but the distinction is not very great. The Bill as drafted defines a footpath and a bridleway and it so


defines them as to include a highway at the side of a river. By the Amendment we propose to include this specific definition so that the survey shall include that form of path.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: Does the hon. Gentleman say that the definition in the Bill excludes a highway at the side of a river where there is a right of navigation over the highway?

Mr. King: It excludes one upon which there is only a right of passage for the purpose of towing.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: But that is not a right of navigation. The Amendment refers to
a right to use the highway for purposes of navigation ….
There is not likely to be any navigating on the highway.

Mr. Henry Strauss: I rise only to rescue the draftsman, who, I think, is probably quite correct in suggesting the Amendment which has now been moved, from the wholly inadequate explanation which the Parliamentary Secretary has given of its purpose. Of course, as has been pointed out by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller), the Amendment cannot possibly add "towpath" to the previous subsection. The Amendment only says that a highway shall not be excluded from the definition for a particular reason, and one has to find a towpath included by implication in the previous words. The previous words, as mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary, are "footpath" and "bridleway," and I think that the reason why these words or some like them are required is explained by the words "but no other" in line 36, where the sub-paragraph reads:
'bridleway' means a highway over which the public have the following, but no other, rights of way. …
Of course, in the case of a towpath there may be a right which includes the right of pulling a barge on the river. It may be, therefore, that an Amendment of this kind is required. I do not suggest that the draftsman was wrong in suggesting to the Minister the inclusion of some such new subsection as the Amendment proposes, although, even so,

I should have thought that the addition of a proviso might have been a little neater. But I am bound to say that the words chosen to carry out this purpose are about as puzzling to the layman as any words that could possibly have been produced. While I am quite certain that my right hon. and hon. Friends have no intention whatever of opposing the Amendment, I hope that the Minister will look at the words a little further before the Bill goes to another place to see whether he cannot find something a little clearer.

Mr. Molson: I hope that some effort will be made to alter these words in order to get in a simpler manner the result which we all want. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary, whose explanation I was following, to look at line 38 on page 17. I wonder whether the point is not already covered where Subsection (6) reads:
'bridleway' means a highway over which the public have the following, but no other, rights of way, that is to say, a right of way on foot and a right of way on horseback or leading a horse, with or without a right to drive animals of any description along the highway.
Would not a towpath be covered by that case where a horse is being driven along the highway?

4.0 p.m.

Mr. C. Williams: I can see the position in regard to towpaths, but what is the position with a tidal waterway, such as the Dart, where one cannot get between two points to houses at high water, and possibly not at low water, but where there has always been the possibility of driving a car between them? That is a matter of some importance which I hope the Minister will look at between now and a later stage.

Mr. King: The hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) assumed that craft on a river are always pulled by a horse, but we wish to include a pathway by a river where there are towing rights, whatever those rights may be, and the definition as it stands excludes a path along which there is a sole right of towing. This Amendment inserts that exception, and I do not think it could be put more plainly.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary has got this right yet. If there is a right of


towing, surely that would be a public right, and if it is a public right, it will be a public right of towing either by a human being or by a horse. There is no question of a public right of towing by machine having arisen. If there is, I should be interested to know from the Parliamentary Secretary whether any such right has been established alongside any river, or canal. The public right of towing must be by human beings or by horses. If that public right exists, surely it comes within the definition of "bridleway" because there will be a right of way on foot or a right of way leading a horse. If that is not covered, I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to pay some attention to the words of the Amendment he is seeking to insert, because the effect of that definition is not to include a footpath or towpath by the side of a river used for the purposes of towing, but to provide that a towpath shall not be excluded where it is a highway if the towpath is used for purposes of navigation. I have never heard of a towpath being used for the purposes of navigation and I suggest that the wording of the subsection is wrong.

Mrs. Leah Manning: I hope the Minister will not agree to alter this. It seems clear to me that one does not need to be in a boat to navigate it, as the hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) will realise if he has sailed a boat and the wind has gone dead on it. I do not see why one could not sit in a car and pull the boat, with someone steering it. That would be a very easy thing to do. I have seen a tractor pulling a boat. Navigating means moving a boat on water and for that one may use a machine, a car, a tractor, oneself or a horse.

Mr. H. Strauss: I agree with part of the remarks of the hon. Lady the Member for Epping (Mrs. Manning). It is true that one may make use of a towpath for the purposes of navigation. My only ground of dissatisfaction is that the Parliamentary Secretary has again made a mess of it. He has not even got it right now. He spoke of a right to use the towpath solely for navigation, but, if he looks at the position of the word "only" in the Amendment, he will find that it provides nothing of the sort. The words we have to consider—and I am defending

the draftsman from the wholly inadequate explanation of the Parliamentary Secretary—are:
shall not be excluded from any definition contained in the last foregoing subsection by reason only that the public have a right to use the highway for purposes of navigation.
The Parliamentary Secretary has supposed the words to be "for purposes of navigation only," which is something quite different. The words in the subsection are required by the draftsman because of the words of limitation contained in the definition Clause. I give as an example the words in subsection (6), "but no other." Having regard to the obvious difficulty that these words have caused and to the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary has, on several occasions, made a mess of trying to explain the matter, I suggest that it should be looked into carefully in another place to see whether it can be dealt with, not by a new subsection, but by a proviso in the definition Clause.

Mr. C. Williams: I am not interested in towpaths but in places where there is access to a tidal way. We have had no answer to that point, although I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary intended to answer but accidentally forgot to do so. The point may not arise on this Amendment, but this seemed to be a suitable opportunity to raise it, as some part of my constituency is affected.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Williams: I very courteously asked for an answer to a question which affects my constituency very much, as it does also the present constituency of the Parliamentary Secretary. He might tell me and his own constituents whether their rights are fully protected. I think they are, but I want to be sure.

Mr. King: The Clause is not designed to protect any particular part of the country or any particular person. It is a definition Clause and we are dealing with the definition of rights of way. Therefore, the point raised by the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) does not arise.

Mr. Williams: Surely those rights should be defined?

Mr. King: They are there.

Mr. H. Strauss: On page 18, line 3, the last word but one is "so." It is difficult to attach any meaning to that word there and I think it should be omitted.

Mr. Williams: I am afraid the Parliamentary Secretary has not completely answered my question. Here we have perfectly clearly a right of way for navigation on tidal waters. With that have grown up rights of way and access from point to point when the tide is down. I am sorry I have not had an answer from the Parliamentary Secretary, because this affects a great many people. I hope that at some stage the matter will be made clear.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 28.—(PROVISION OF INFORMATION BY OTHER LOCAL AUTHORITIES.)

Mr. King: I beg to move, in page 18, line 12, at the end, to insert:
(3) Any arrangements made under this section for the provision of information by a parish council shall require the council to cause a parish meeting to be held for the purpose of considering the information to be provided by the council; and any arrangements so made for the provision of information by the council of a rural district shall, as respects each parish in the district not having a parish council, require the representative body of the parish or a member of that body to cause a parish meeting to be held for the purpose of considering the information to be provided by the district council in relation to the parish.
This Amendment carries out an undertaking which was given to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling). It secures that in all cases a parish meeting shall have an opportunity to consider information provided by the parish council for the purpose of helping to draw up the draft map showing rights of way. The Amendment also deals with the case which the hon. Member had in mind in which there is no parish council. The Amendment provides that in any event the views of the parish shall be taken into account. I need hardly elaborate further the details of the Amendment. I think they explain themselves.

Mr. Keeling: In thanking the hon. Gentleman for having tabled this Amendment, I should like to say that it not only stems from an Amendment which I moved in Committee but it is, I am sure,

due in part to the sympathetic interest of the Parliamentary Secretary, who told us that he had not only been a parish councillor for ten years but had actually attended meetings of his parish council.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 33.—(PERIODICAL REVISION OF MAPS AND STATEMENTS.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 25, line 16, at the end, to insert:
Provided that if within such time (not being less than twenty-eight days) as may be specified in the notice any representation is made to the authority that as respects the whole or part of their area a revised map and statement prepared as aforesaid would differ from the definitive or last revised map and statement,—

(a) the authority, after considering the representation and affording to the person by whom it was made an opportunity of being heard by a person appointed by the authority for the purpose, shall determine whether the representation is well founded and shall serve notice of their determination on the person by whom the representation was made;
(b) any person aggrieved by a determination of the authority under the last foregoing paragraph may, at any time within fourteen days after the service upon him of the notice of determination, serve notice of appeal against that determination on the Minister and on the authority;
(c) where notice of appeal is duly served under the last foregoing paragraph the Minister, after giving to the appellant and to the authority an opportunity of being heard by a person appointed by him for the purpose, shall either dismiss the appeal or direct that effect shall be given to the representation;
(d) if the authority determine that a representation is well founded or the Minister directs that a representation shall have effect, the authority shall be required to prepare a revised map and statement in consequence of the review, so however that where the representation relates to part only of their area they shall not be required so to prepare a revised map and statement for any other part of their area."

Clause 33 provides for a periodic review of the footpath map, and it contemplates the possibility that a county council may take the view that there has been no change of circumstance since the last map was prepared. That view may be disputed, and this Amendment provides machinery, which did not originally exist, for disputing such a decision. The machinery is similar to that which is provided for a person who


alleges, when the survey is being made, that a footpath which was not included ought to have been included.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: We on this side of the Committee agree with this Amendment. We think it is necessary that there shall be provision for the revision of these maps and the designation of footpaths in both directions, that is to say both for adding them and taking them away.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

4.15 p.m.

Clause 40.—(EXERCISE BY OTHER AUTHO- RITIES OF POWERS UNDER SECTIONS 38 AND 39.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 30, line 16, at the end, to insert:
Provided that, in relation to the creation of rights of way in a National Park, this subsection shall have effect as if—

(a) references to the council of a county included references to a local planning authority whose area consists of or includes any part of the Park, and
(b) references to a county district in the county included references to a county borough or county district any part of which is comprised in the area of such a local planning authority."

This Amendment gives effect to a promise which I made to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Symonds) to the effect that machinery should be provided by which the Minister could, if it was thought desirable, transfer the functions of creating new rights of way from the county district councils and the county borough councils to a joint planning board. This Amendment achieves that.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 30, line 25, leave out from "subsection," to second "the," in line 28.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 42.—(DIVERSION OF PUBLIC PATHS.)

Amendment made, in page 32, line 26, leave out "(5)," and insert "(4)."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 47.—(LIABILITY FOR REPAIR OF EXISTING PUBLIC PATHS.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Silkin: It is proposed to delete this Clause in order to incorporate some of its provisions in a new Clause.

Question put, and negatived.

Clause 48.—(LIABILITY FOR REPAIR OF NEW PUBLIC PATHS.)

Amendment made: in page 37, line 32, leave out subsection (1).—[Mr. Silkin.]

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 37, line 39, after "order," to insert:
being—

(a) an agreement or order made by a local authority who are not the highway authority as respects the path in question, or
(b) an order made by the Minister under subsection (3) of section forty of this Act where, in relation to the making of a public path order creating the right of way in question, the appropriate authority for the purposes of the said subsection (3) is such a local authority."

It may be convenient to the Committee to consider this Amendment and the next four Amendments together. Their combined effect is to provide more effective machinery for dealing with the procedure by which new paths are made up to the necessary standard before they are taken over by the highway authority for maintenance. In particular they deal with a number of circumstances, a rather complicated one of which is where the highway authority and the local authority are the same. They deal also with the case in which a new path is being created by the direction of the Minister. They are purely machinery points.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 37, line 43, leave out from second "the," to end of line 44, and insert:
local authority mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) of this subsection, as the case may be.

In page 38, line 15, leave out from first "the," to "to," in line 17, and insert "path shall not be required."

In Page 38, In line 20, leave out from "the," to "to," in line 21, and insert "path shall not be required."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 38, line 25, to leave out from the beginning, to "may," in line 26, and to insert:


it shall be the duty of the highway authority to carry out any work specified in a certificate under subsection (1) thereof; and where the authority have carried out the work they.

Mr. C. Williams: This is substituting "shall" for "may"—

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Diamond): The hon. Member could not have heard the Minister suggest that this and the previous four Amendments should be taken together. I heard no words of dissent from the Opposition and I took it that that was agreed. Therefore, there is no further opportunity for discussion at this stage.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 38, line 27, leave out from "authority," to "any," in line 28, and insert:
on whom a copy of the certificate was served."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 38, line 39, to leave out subsection (7) and to insert:
(7) Where a public path order—

(a) is made in compliance with a direction of the Minister under subsection (3) of section forty of this Act and is so made by the local authority who, on the coming into operation of the order, become the highway authority as respects the path in question, or
(b) is made by the Minister under the said subsection (3) in a case where, in relation to the making of a public path order creating the right of way in question, the appropriate authority for the purposes of the said subsection (3) is that local authority,

the following provisions shall have effect, that is to say:

(i) the local authority specified in paragraph (a) or (b) of this subsection, as the case may be, shall survey the path and shall certify what work (if any) appears to them to be necessary to bring the path into a fit condition for use by the public as a footpath or bridleway, as the case may be, and shall furnish the Minister with a copy of the certificate;
(ii) if the Minister is not satisfied with a certificate made under the last foregoing paragraph, he shall either cause a local inquiry to be held or shall give to the local authority an opportunity of being heard by a person appointed by him for the purpose and, after considering the report of the person appointed to hold the inquiry or the person so appointed as aforesaid, shall make such order either confirming or varying the certificate as he may think fit; and
(iii) subject to the provisions of the last foregoing paragraph, it shall be the duty of

the highway authority to carry out the work specified in a certificate made by them under paragraph (i) of this subsection."

This provision relates to a case where the Minister has made an order in default of the local authority. The Amendment provides for the carrying out of the necessary work to enable the footpath to be put into a usable condition. It is rather elaborate, but different circumstances arise when the Minister makes an order from when a new path is created at the instance of the local authority, and therefore the Amendment is necessary.

Mr. C. Williams: The whole matter is rather wide, and I should have thought that the various points might have been explained to the Committee, as most hon. Members have had very little time to study what has happened. I ask the Minister to explain particularly what is meant by:
if the Minister is not satisfied with a certificate made under the last foregoing paragraph, he shall either cause a local inquiry to be held …
In what circumstances would the Minister express dissatisfaction with what was going on?

Mr. Silkin: The Minister would be dissatisfied with the certificate if the work proposed to be done on that certificate seemed to him to be unsatisfactory for the purpose of providing access for the public along that path.

Mr. Williams: That really means that the Minister has the power—which, of course, he has—and obviously, from the tone of that reply, he intends to use his power to interfere as often as he can.

Mr. Silkin: No, I did not say that. If the hon. Member has carefully studied this, which I quite appreciate he has not, he would realise that we are dealing with the case of a defaulting authority, when the Minister has to step in after a public inquiry. In such a case the defaulting authority might be reluctant to put the footpath into a reasonable state of repair. In those circumstances the certificate might be unsatisfactory, and that is why the Minister must have the right to step in, although no Minister seeks to step in more than is necessary, or to interfere unduly with the functions of the local authority.

Mr. Williams: I have got rather further than that; I understand all those


points. Many local authorities, however, are very worried about the number of times which local authority work is interfered with by Government Departments. Although I suppose we must accept this, I am not happy about this power of interference.

Mr. Wilmot: As I understand it, the power under this Clause applies only in the case of new footpaths. Are there similar powers of upkeep and repair in the case of existing paths?

Mr. Silkin: With regard to existing paths, the existing law applies. In my view those powers have, been clarified and to a certain extent strengthened.

Mr. Wilmot: I ask the Minister to consider again the advisability of having powers to repair existing footpaths. There are a good many cases where they have got into a terrible state of disrepair.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 38, line 47, at the end, to add:
(7) The foregoing provisions of this section shall apply to any public path created by a diversion order with the substitution of references to such an order for references to a public path order and of references to subsection (5) of section forty-four of this Act for references to subsection (3) of section forty thereof.
This Amendment is designed to bring the procedure for a diversion order into line with that for a public path order for agreement; that is to say similar powers are available here regarding the footpath created as a result of a diversion as for a new path.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 49.—(GENERAL PROVISIONS AS TO LONG-DISTANCE ROUTES.)

Amendment made: In page 39, line 16, leave out "and."—[Mr. King.]

Mr. King: I beg to move, in page 39, line 20, at the end, to insert:
(c) for the provision and operation of ferries where they are needed for completing the route; and
(d) for the provision of accommodation, meals and refreshments along the route.
We are indebted to an hon. Member on each side of the House for the two parts of this Amendment; the hon. Member for

Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) in the case of the ferries and the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Hastings) who urged in Committee that there should be provision for accommodation, meals and refreshments, particularly along long-distance paths. Both provisions are made. I suggest that we do not discuss them at length at this stage but accept them formally, because here they are merely mentioned, whereas on two later Amendments we shall be able to discuss them at length.

Mr. Keeling: In thanking the hon. Gentleman for this addition to the Bill, I take it that there is no reason why meals, and refreshments should not in suitable cases be provided on the ferry so as not to mess up the countryside.

Mr. C. Williams: I would point out that this will add considerably to the cost. We may have to provide a large number of ferries and a large amount of accommodation for meals and refreshments. It is rather amazing that, after the warnings we have had in the last few days from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we should be calmly and easily accepting this enormous cost; but that is in keeping with a good many other things in the Bill, and the Chancellor must be very worried about some of them.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Williams: This Clause has, of course, been more or less agreed on, but we are in the curious position, in this Clause, of adding to the public costs at a time when we are urged to do everything to reduce them. That is a most curious position.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 59.—(ACCESS AGREEMENTS.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 46, line 35, to leave out "either," and to insert:
of either or both of the following descriptions, that is to say.
This Amendment, and the Amendment proposed in the next line, to leave out "or" and to insert "and," provide that in assessing compensation payment may be made in respect of the making of an


access agreement both in consideration of the making of the agreement and by way of contribution in regard to the expenditure incurred by the person making the agreement. In Section 59 (2), as it stands, these two methods of compensation are alternative; but it is recognised that there may be a case where both types of payment ought to be made. There is an Amendment on the Order Paper in the name of the right hon. Gentleman on the same lines, but I think that this way of doing it is preferable as a matter of drafting.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: The same point had occurred to me. As the Clause was drafted, it appeared that these payments which are enabled are mutually exclusive of one another; that is to say, a person could be paid for one but not for the other. I had put down an Amendment later to secure the same effect as this Amendment. I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for accepting the suggestion.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made In page 46, line 36, leave out "or," and insert "and."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 77.—(INFORMATION SERVICES TO BE PROVIDED BY COMMISSION.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 57, line 37, to leave out "and."
This Amendment and the next two Amendments on the Order Paper could conveniently be taken together. They provide that the National Parks Commission may give to the public information about long-distance routes, as well as information about national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. This follows as a consequence of other Amendments.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 57, line 38, after "beauty," insert:
and long-distance routes for which proposals under section forty-nine of this Act have been approved.

In Page 57, In line 40, at end, insert:
or persons wishing to use such routes."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 58, line 5, to leave out "to use," and to insert "that."
This Amendment and the next two Amendments could conveniently be taken together. They provide for the Commission taking such steps as appear to them expedient for securing publicity for the avoidance of damage by the public. In Committee the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) suggested—I think with the full agreement of the Committee—that it might be desirable in certain cases that the Commission should use some other body for the purpose of carrying out this publicity, and that it should be in a position to contribute towards their expenses. These Amendments make provision for that.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 58, line 5, after "publicity," insert "are used."

In Page 58, In line 13, at end, add:
(3) For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that the steps mentioned in subsection (1) of this section include the making of contributions towards expenses incurred by other bodies of persons."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. C. Williams: I should like to ask for some explanation of this Clause. I think many hon. Members are not happy about certain parts of it, particularly that part which we have just amended, which refers to the need for publications for the purpose of preventing damage. On the other hand, we have seen rather an excess of Government publications of certain types. I saw one the other day about electricity. I should like the Minister to give us some idea how he intends to use this Clause. The public should be told what the right hon. Gentleman thinks and what sort of literature to expect. It would be interesting to know whether he will endeavour to see that the pamphlets issued—perhaps at 1s. or 6d.—are sold at roughly cost price.

Mr. Keeling: I should like to add to what my hon. Friend has said by asking the Minister what he has in mind as suitable methods of publicity for encouraging a proper standard of behaviour on the part of persons in


national parks and other areas. In particular, has he any programme for reducing the appalling mess caused by litter left by the public? I should like him to say whether he has in mind that it should be put down by a prosecution in suitable cases or whether, on the other hand, he proposes to employ wardens who, by sweet persuasion, will endeavour to persuade the public that freedom should not really include freedom to make a mess.

Mr. Silkin: All these matters are very interesting, but they really fall outside the provisions of Clause 77, which deals only with the kind of publicity which the National Parks Commission shall carry out. When I am asked what the Commission will do, or how they will exercise their authority, those questions run counter to the whole of the discussion we had in Committee, where the burden of the case was that the Commission should be given the maximum amount of freedom. However, if I am asked what I have in mind in relation to the type of publicity, I would say, speaking as a townsman, that there is a good deal of ignorance on the part of townsmen about what constitutes damage to farming interests. I do not think that much of the damage is wilfully caused. The leaving open of gates, and so on, very often is due to the fact that the townsman does not appreciate the damage which might result.
One of the methods of publicity ought to be designed to inform the townsman in the simplest possible way what are the results of some of the conduct which is most complained of in the country. As the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) knows, there will be by-laws. He has studied the Bill. There will be bylaws and, I suppose, there might even be prosecutions. I hope not, because I do not believe that that is the right way in which to achieve the results which we all have in mind. The short answer to the questions which have been asked is that one must leave this task to the people in whose hands it has been put. I hope to set up a responsible body of National Parks Commissioners, and I think that they can be trusted to provide suitable forms of publicity.

Mr. McKie: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the information he has given. A great part of this Bill applies to Scotland. This Clause will affect a new

national park which is just coming into being in my constituency.

Mr. Silkin: Mr. Silkin indicated dissent—

Mr. McKie: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. It is coming into being. If he says that this Clause will not apply to that park, I must accept his words. I certainly think that Part VI of the Bill applies to it. Having that in mind, I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) said.
The right hon. Gentleman has now replied about the necessity of the National Parks Commission doing all in their power to inculcate in the townspeople who will be using these parks the idea that the right of using these beauty spots will also carry considerable duties in the way of good behaviour and of leaving them in the same condition as that in which they found them. We know that in the past there has not been proper education in this direction, and that in consequence many people who live in dreary surroundings quite thoughtlessly behave in an irresponsible way. It has not always been their fault, but, under the progressive régime—I am told it is progressive—of the Socialist Government and under this Bill, the general body of the public, whether living in town or country, will have to realise their obligations in that respect.
The right hon. Gentleman seemed rather querulous about some of the points put to him and said that they were matters for the Commission to decide. Of course, it is for the Commission to decide, but, since the right hon. Gentleman and this House are calling the Commission into being, the Minister must not take it out of place if we offer a few suggestions on how that Commission should proceed, and particularly in regard to standards of behaviour. The widest publicity should be given by pamphlet, which can be done moderately cheaply, drawing attention to the facilities which are being provided up and down the country for the town dwellers. Unless wide publicity is given, particularly applying to the national parks in some of the remote areas, I do not think advantage will be taken of them to the full extent that it should.

General Sir George Jeffreys: The Minister has suggested that the difficulties concerning damage and


litter can be dealt with adequately by education of those concerned, but I do not know how he suggests that those concerned are to be reached in order to give them the necessary education, or by whom that education is to be given. Is he proposing that it should be given by his Department through the Press, for instance, or by notices in the schools, or in what way is it to be given? On the question of leaving gates open, while this may be very serious for the people concerned, it is very difficult to reach the people who offend in that direction in order to educate them so that they will not leave gates open.
There is also the question of expense involved in the measures to be taken to prevent litter, whether by the employment of guardians or curators or persons policing the areas.

The Temporary Chairman: This Clause refers only to information services.

4.45 p.m.

Sir G. Jeffreys: I am sorry if I went outside the Clause, Mr. Diamond, but I was certainly referring to matters to which the right hon. Gentleman himself had referred. On this question of information, I was asking who is to pay for the giving of such information and how it is to be given. Is it suggested that the cost should fall on the rates of the counties concerned, or is any cost incurred in giving information to be borne by the right hon. Gentleman's Department? It seems to me that this is a considerable question which ought to be answered. Under this Bill, a large number of people are to be introduced into areas where they have certainly never been before. The footpaths in my part of the country, and there are a great number of them, are purely local footpaths for the convenience of the local people. How is information about these paths to be conveyed to the people who may come into the locality from the towns in the future?

Mr. Keeling: On a point of Order. May I draw your attention, Mr. Diamond, to line 5 on page 58 of the Bill, which makes it quite clear that this Clause deals not only with information as suggested in the title, but with methods of publicity for the prevention of damage and for good behaviour? In other words, it

includes exhortation, advice and many other things besides information.

Mr. C. Williams: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling), who has just put such an interesting point of Order, for helping me in a matter which I had noticed myself. I rose to express my great sorrow that the Minister did not answer one question, which should have been quite easy for him, whether the leaflets or pamphlets to be issued to people who may use these footpaths will be charged at approximately the cost price. This is a matter of considerable importance, and I asked the Minister in what way he wished to develop this suggestion. I was hoping that he would tell us that one of the things he will do is to get the Minister of Education to help to publicise these matters in the schools. That would have been the first thing which anyone really keen on this matter would have done, but the right hon. Gentleman did not do that and presumably had not thought of it. There are many ways which he could have told us concerning how this new body will use the schools for information purposes.
I also hope that he will use another body as well, and I refer to the military Services, which are sometimes very good and sometimes less good. We ought to have methods of publicity for our national parks in the Services on the lines of posters saying: "This beautiful park belongs to you; it is yours, but please do not despoil it in any way." There are many ways in which such publicity could be used, but we do not expect this Government to be practical, and it is only natural that it is left to a Tory hon. Member to lay down what a Government Department should do. [Interruption.] I hear one hon. Gentleman opposite muttering to himself. If he wishes to interrupt, I will give way. No? The hon. Gentleman says it is not worth it. If he does not think it is worth while being nice, I take the opposite view.

Mr. W. R. Williams: What I said was that I did not think it was worth while interrupting the hon. Gentleman, if he really wants to know what I said.

Mr. C. Williams: I must not follow that interruption. I am quite sure from the speeches which I heard that the hon.


Gentleman would not make an interruption which was worth while replying to. I think a useful purpose has been served by this discussion on the encouragement of an extended use of these national parks and the necessity to preserve these properties which are so valuable from the nation's point of view. I am sure that a proper Government would do a great deal to instruct people through the education and other authorities. I am glad that at least some of us have thought the thing out, and I hope that the Minister will now consider the matter.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 79.—(APPLICATION TO AREAS OF OUTSTANDING NATURAL BEAUTY OF PROVISIONS RELATING TO NATIONAL PARKS.)

Amendment made: In page 59, line 18, leave out from "eight" to "subsection," in line 19, and insert:
paragraph (d) of subsection (4) of section (General duties of Commission in relation to National Parks)."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 83.—(RESTRICTION OF TRAFFIC ON CERTAIN ROADS.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 63, line 23, at the end, to insert:
(7) Where an order under this section has been made by the Minister of Transport as respects any road, he may give to the highway authority directions as to the exercise by them in relation to the road of their powers under section forty-eight of the Road Traffic Act, 1930 (which provides for the erection of traffic signs); and any directions under this subsection—

(a) may require the traffic signs to be placed in pursuance thereof to be of such size, colour and type as may be specified in the directions, notwithstanding that the size, colour or type may not be one prescribed for the purposes of the said section forty-eight;
(b) shall be enforceable, on the application of the Minister of Transport, by mandamus."

This Amendment provides for the case where the Minister of Transport has made an order restricting traffic on a road in a National Park or in an area of outstanding natural beauty. It then becomes necessary to give directions to traffic as

to alternative ways, and it may be necessary to provide signs. This Amendment enables the Minister of Transport to give directions to the highway authority as to the kind of signs that are to be put up.

Mr. H. Strauss: I agree with the Minister that some such subsection as this is proper and right. The only remarks I wish to make are not so much for his ears as for the ears of a representative of the Ministry of Transport, which I regret to see is not represented on the Government Front Bench at this moment. We are concerned here with signposts and signs in some of the most beautiful parts of this country. Unfortunately, the Minister of Transport has an appalling record in the matter of design and care for amenities. Needless to say, I shall not revert to that matter which the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) and I were able to mention on a previous occasion, which will be in the minds of many Members at this moment. I would call the attention of Members to something they may have observed very recently.
Until comparatively recently, we had signposts put up by, or at the instigation of, the Minister of Transport which were reasonably well designed and clear. The words were in black and the background was white. They were not too ugly and they were perfectly clear. But in more recent days, quite suddenly, we have seen signs in three colours all over the country. The Minister of Transport has decided to put up a sign with a yellow background, with white and then black upon it. This has two disadvantages. First, it is perfectly hideous; yellow is a particularly disturbing feature in ordinary street architecture and in the countryside. Secondly, it is much more difficult to see what it says. In fact, it has every possible disadvantage.
I do not want to enlarge on that or say anything controversial. I want to say, what I believe every Member who has any care for amenities will agree with, that there happen to be at least two bodies in this country who are giving very careful thought to good design and good design of the furniture of roads, to highways, footpaths and so forth, namely, the Royal Fine Art Commission and the Council of Industrial Design, which act together and collaborate and are urging


and are anxious to persuade the Minister of Transport to consult them on all road signs, street furniture and so forth.
I beg the right hon. Gentleman whose care for some of the beauty of the countryside I do not doubt—there would be little motive for this Bill unless he had some care for these things—to observe what the Ministry of Transport are doing at the present time. While we are granting these powers to the Minister of Transport, because some such powers are right, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will convey, what I feel sure is the unanimous wish of this Committee, to the Minister of Transport that, in exercising the powers we are giving him, he should have some regard to decency and good design and should consult the two bodies I have mentioned.

Mr. Keeling: Even though no representative of the Ministry of Transport is here, and I really think that a representative ought to be here to answer on this and other Clauses, I presume that the Minister of Town and Country Planning has some information about what is in the mind of the Minister of Transport as to how this Amendment will be put into effect. In particular, I should like to ask what is the intention in regard to the colour of these signs. Can we have an assurance that the hideous yellow which is so much favoured by the Automobile Association will not be used for these signs, a great many of which will be in the depths of the country? I should also like an assurance that before any decision is reached on the matter the Royal Fine Art Commission will be consulted.

Mr. Silkin: I hope that the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) realises it is not possible for me to deal effectively with what he has said, because it is really a matter which is directed to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] He has other things to do, I presume; this Bill has been quite capably handled by the Minister of Town and Country Planning and his Parliamentary Secretary. But I give the hon. and learned Member the assurance that I shall inform my right hon. Friend of what he has said, and of what the hon. Member

for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) has said—I shall even send him a copy of their speeches.
I shall take particular care, as the Minister of Town and Country Planning, to confer with my right hon. Friend to ensure that these signs are not as bad as the hon. and learned Member fears. On the other hand, I do not entirely share his view about them, nor the views of the hon. Member for Twickenham. I do not think that yellow is necessarily an ugly colour. I think it is a very good colour. All I can say is that we do realise the importance of not doing anything in relation to signs which will be out of harmony with the beautiful surroundings in which they will be placed. I hope that both Members will accept that assurance.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Strauss: I should have thought that when a Clause giving additional powers to the Minister of Transport is being discussed, one of two things should happen—either a representative of the Ministry should be present, or the competent Ministers who are here should be empowered to answer for the Minister whose powers are affected. I am sorry if the right hon. Gentleman has not noticed the more recent yellow atrocities which have been put up, and which have the disadvantage of being extremely disfiguring and far less clear than those which they have replaced.
I am not asking that my word or even the right hon. Gentleman's word should be taken, but that the Minister should consult the two bodies set up by the Government for the express purpose of being consulted on matters of this kind. I have made my point, with which I believe Members opposite are in full sympathy, and I am confident that the right hon. Gentleman will press his colleague rather more hardly than he has so far indicated.

Sir I. Fraser: Lest it has been overlooked, may I observe that orange and blue are colours which are most striking and that it is not true to say that all orange and blue colours are less distinctly seen than black and white colours? There may be some reason for this change—perhaps to prevent accidents—but while sharing the view that some authority should be consulted as


to the duty and suitability of these signs, I do not believe it should go forth that only black and white signs should be used, as they are not the most distinctive colours.

Mr. C. Williams: I do not wish to disturb the Liberal Party from their slumbers, but I must say that I was horrified at the Minister's reply—and it takes a lot of what this Government have done to horrify me. Apparently the Minister did not consult the Minister of Transport at all. We are used to that kind of thing, but I should have thought that on an occasion like this there would have been consultation beforehand about the way in which these powers should be carried out. This sloppy way of carrying on shows up badly today, when we have so much to do. The Minister should take more trouble in working out these matters; there should be greater co-ordination between Government Departments.

The Temporary Chairman: The hon. Member must direct his remarks to the Amendment.

Mr. Williams: The Minister's conduct is too bad, even for this Government.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. H. Strauss: I beg to move, in page 63, line 30, at the end, to insert:
(8) The powers conferred by this section are additional to and not in derogation of the powers conferred by other enactments, and the powers conferred by section forty-six of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, as amended by section twenty-nine of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, to prohibit or restrict the driving of vehicles, or of any specified class or description of vehicles, on any specified road shall be exercisable on the ground that the road cannot be used, or cannot be used without restriction, by any such vehicles without prejudicing the comfort and enjoyment of other persons using the road or of the public generally.
Since I raised this matter in Committee I have had some correspondence with the right hon. Gentleman on the subject, and he has been good enough to send me a reply to the letter which I sent to him. Perhaps he would like to know that the Amendment which I have moved was put on the Order Paper before I received his reply. Having regard to the contents of his letter I am not very confident that he will accept the Amendment now, but, since I wish to be persuasive, I should like to make it clear that I do not propose

now to press it to a Division. I wish merely to put two or three points before him in the hope that they may be considered when the Bill goes to another place and that they may be met to some extent in the interests not only of the particular purposes for which I have moved the Amendment, but also of the public and some Government Departments.
This Clause deals with the restriction of traffic on certain roads. We are now getting a multiplicity of different provisions in different Acts under which traffic can be restricted on roads. To give only three examples, there is the provision mentioned in my Amendment, that is to say, Section 46 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, as amended by Section 29 of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, which is the most general provision; there is the provision in the Special Roads Act, passed not very long ago; and there is also the provision in this Clause.
I do not think it is for the convenience of the public, of amenity societies, of lawyers, of local authorities or of representatives of the various classes of traffic which are liable to be restricted, that there should be so many different sections of different Acts under any of which a restriction may be imposed, and that there should not be any cross-reference on the face of the Statute to these different powers. The purpose of my subsection is twofold: First, it is to make clear at the outset that the powers conferred by this Clause are additional to and not in derogation of powers previously conferred; secondly, that the general powers contained in Section 46 of the 1930 Act, as amended, can be used on grounds of amenity.
I always give one example when arguing this point, in the hope that it will be generally known to Members in all sections of the Committee. I take the example of the beautiful green road known as the Berkshire Ridgeway, which may be known to many Members. I believe that all who know it will desire—and I am sure the Minister of Transport desires—that there shall not be unrestricted motor traffic on that green road. It is not certain that the required restriction will be imposed under either of the other statutory provisions I have mentioned, that is to say, the statutory


provisions other than that which I have specifically named in this new subsection.
Those paths or roads which will be protected as through routes will very often be lengthy routes, and a comparatively small section may not be protected as a through route. On the other hand, under this Clause, unless the road is in the area of a national park the powers apply only in an area of outstanding natural beauty. There may be questions where that is arguable; I think it would be for the convenience of everybody, and not least the Ministry of Transport, that their powers under Section 46 of the 1930 Act should be exercisable on the grounds of amenity, if the road is completely unsuited to the traffic proposed to be restricted. If we have something like the Berkshire Ridgeway, which has been used by pedestrians and riders of horses for at least 7,000 years, we should protect it, quite apart from whether it comes under these two more restricted classes of provision which I have named.

Mr. Silkin: I think the hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that this question has really been fully ventilated, for, not only did he raise the matter in Committee upstairs, but he also raised it with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and again with me in correspondence. Therefore, there can be no question that we are not all fully alive to the point he has made. The consistent answer has been that we accept his point, and that it is met by Section 46 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930.

Mr. H. Strauss: Oh, no.

Mr. Silkin: Well, that is what we say; we say that that Section enables traffic to be restricted on grounds of amenity.

Mr. Strauss: May I correct the right hon. Gentleman? He is really making a slip. That has never been maintained either in the discussions upstairs or in our correspondence. The Ministry of Transport supported a Private Member's Bill which I promoted before the last war precisely because they were confident that they could not use the Section on grounds of amenity. The point raised in the correspondence has been that powers subsequently taken meet the point, but not that Section 46 meets the point. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that he is making a slip.

Mr. Silkin: I am sorry; the hon. and learned Gentleman is right. It is the Amendment to the Special Roads Bill which amended Section 46 of the Road Traffic Act which it is stated—and which I am advised is so—enables the Ministry of Transport to restrict traffic on roads on the grounds of amenity. It is not Section 46 as it was, but Section 46 as now amended. But the point remains that it is contended, all parties being fully alive to the point which the hon. and learned Gentleman makes, that his case is met and that there is no need for further amendment of the law.
However, in view of the persuasive way in which the hon. and learned Gentleman moved his Amendment, I am quite prepared to look at it once more, and to have a word with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport. If it should then transpire that the advice given to us is either wrong or in any way doubtful, I am quite prepared to see that the matter is put beyond any doubt. But, on the advice I have, it would be absurd to amend a law which at the present time appears perfectly clear. For these reasons, I regret that I cannot advise the Committee to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Strauss: In view of what the right hon. Gentleman has said and his promise to look into the matter between now and when the Bill is considered in another place, after giving him the assurance that I have reasons of a formidable kind for thinking that the law without such amendment is not quite adequate, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Sutcliffe: This Clause deals with the restriction of traffic, and I wish again to bring before the Minister the anxiety felt by all the road users of the country concerning the power he has under the Bill to close roads, especially main roads. For instance, the trunk road and the Class 1 road represent 28,000 miles out of a total of 155,000 miles of roads of all kinds. We think it wrong that there should be the risk and the fear hanging over these road users that in time a road may be closed or may be diverted as a


result of this Bill. These roads, as everybody knows, are essential for the carrying of goods as well as for passenger traffic of all sorts, and form the main traffic routes of Great Britain.
5.15 p.m.
The Minister may say, as he said to me in Standing Committee that the power may never be used. In column 478, the right hon. Gentleman said:
I can assure him that the power to close a trunk or classified road will be used with very great circumspection.
Again, in column 475, he said:
I am impressed with the feeling that one can go too far in restricting the flow of traffic on the King's highway."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 26th May, 1949; c. 478 and 475.]
That may be so, but even though the Minister has expressed his sympathy, there is a danger of a distinct loss of road facilities towards the upkeep of which, after all, the motorists and the transport companies have contributed, as indeed have local rates, and it seems wrong that this power should remain in the Bill.
How many roads run through these national parks? There is one trunk road, No. 5, in North Wales, which goes through one of the first areas which it is proposed to make into a national park. It is the Llangollen-Bettws-y-Coed-Capel-Curig-Bethesda road. Then there are three Class 1 roads in the same category, Windermere to Cockermouth, Windermere to Penrith, Barnsley to Manchester, and Brixton to Leek in the Peak District. On Dartmoor there is the Ashburton to Tavistock road. I should have said there are five, altogether, of these Class 1 roads, which will, I think, convince anyone that this is a most important matter and needs very careful examination even at this comparatively late stage of the Bill. Instead of proceeding by way of this power in the Bill, could not something be done on the lines of another Bill passed this year dealing with the main road through the New Forest, in which it was specifically laid down that traffic could not be restricted on that road except under the general law, by Section 46 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930? I suggest to the Minister that that is a far more satisfactory and an equally effective way of meeting the requirements of the Bill as regards national parks, and I commend it very strongly for his consideration.

Mr. A. Edward Davies: I am amazed at the hon. Member for Royton (Mr. Sutcliffe) bringing a nightmare into the light of day in the fashion he has done. Surely this is a litle power which the Minister is taking to himself in order to provide that in particularly quiet places, useful for the recreation of the community, there shall be some safeguard. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Buxton to Leek road. I think I know the particular stretch he has in mind; it is where the road runs over open moorland. It would be quite fatuous to suggest that that should be closed. What is intended, I understand, is that where other arrangements can be made without inconvenience to the commerce and travelling public of the country, they should be considered. I think all men of sense and goodwill who want to enjoy the countryside would, in this day of hurly-burly, like to think that we shall have that consideration, and that the pleasant places will be quiet and will be places where we can properly recreate ourselves. I think the hon. Member has a nightmare for which there is no tangible substance.

Mr. Silkin: We had a discussion on this matter in Committee and I should like to repeat, very briefly, what I said then. I think some such power as this is absolutely essential if we are to have regard to the convenience and the enjoyment of the people who are to come into the national park areas and the areas of oustanding natural beauty. But the hon. Member for Royton (Mr. Sutcliffe) need have no fear that these powers will be arbitrarily used. He spoke as if the Minister of Transport could or would arbitrarily decide that a certain road should be closed, particularly a trunk road, and that that would be that; but I would refer him to the terms of Clause 83, which require that the council, who would take the first step, have to take into account:

"(a) the reasonable requirements of members of the public as users of traffic of the description proposed to be restricted;
(b) any reasonable requirements for such traffic to have access to premises situated on or near the road; and
(c) any other special or local requirements as to the use of the road by traffic of that description."

Therefore, they have to take traffic requirements fully into consideration before


they decide to put forward the proposal for restriction of traffic.
That is not the end of it. If they do put forward such a proposal, then it is open to the users of the road to object to the restrictions and the Minister of Transport has to hold a public inquiry at which the objectors can put forward their case. It is only after that, and after considering what alternative facilities are available, that the Minister is empowered to make an order. I think the road users are fully protected against any arbitrary use of Clause 83; they will have the fullest opportunity of stating their case, and I can assure the hon. Member that the apprehensions which he and those for whom he speaks feel, and which he has voiced here, are entirely without any justification.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 88.—(POWER OF MINISTER TO DEFRAY EXPENDITURE ON LONG- DISTANCE ROUTES.)

Mr. King: I beg to move, in page 66, line 11, at the end, to add:
() Subject as aforesaid, the Minister may defray or contribute towards expenditure of a local authority incurred under section (Ferries for purposes of long-distance routes) of this Act or incurred in the exercise of their powers of acquiring land, erecting buildings or carrying out work under section (Accommodation, meals and refreshments along long-distance routes) of this Act.
The Committee will remember that previously we discussed briefly both the provision of ferries for purposes of long-distance routes and also the provision of accommodation, meals and refreshments. We have not come to the full discussion that may take place later when we turn to the two new Clauses on the Order Paper, but we have come to the financial provision which will be needed in both instances. The provision is that "the Minister may defray or contribute towards" both the ferries and the work under the Clause for accommodation, meals and refreshments along long-distance routes.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 102.—(INTERPRETATION.)

Mr. King: I beg to move, in page 77, line 9, after "river," to insert "canal."
We are here simply enlarging the definition of a waterway to include canals as well as lakes and rivers.

Sir I. Fraser: This Clause defines an open-air recreation and it excludes from the definition of an open-air recreation organised games. I wonder why?

The Temporary Chairman: Perhaps I can assist the hon. Member in allowing him to catch my eye on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." At the moment we are considering an Amendment to line 9.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. King: I beg to move, in line 23, at the end, to add "and the laying of turf."
The Committee will agree that the local planning authority ought not to be obliged to sow grass where the quickest and cheapest way of doing the job is to lay turf. This Amendment, therefore, adds the words "and the laying of turf" after the word "grass."

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Sir I. Fraser: The definition of open-air recreation positively excludes organised games. I wonder why, because it would seem to me that cricket is an open-air recreation and perhaps also an organised game. Boating may be an open-air recreation and, if there were boating sports or a regatta, it might be considered to be an organised game. This is important because if we look back at Clause 13 we see that powers are taken there for the local authority to spend money in providing facilities for open-air recreation but not, as will be seen, for organised games.
Clause 14 has been omitted from the Bill by the Minister's action, which is very surprising since it was in the original draft and the Government are now taking even greater powers than were originally in the Bill to use the taxpayers' money to build hotels, restaurants, pavilions and other amenities for the entertainment of the people, thereby competing with the private interests that are concerned in this


matter. In view of all that, it seems very surprising to me that organised games should be left out of this definition.
Personally, I object to the Government and local authorities entering into this competition with private entertainment purveyors who can do the job very much better than the Government or the local authorities; nor do I see why taxpayers or ratepayers should be asked to subsidise these services. Nevertheless, if the authority is to have this power, then it should be a complete power, and organised games should certainly be included. I therefore ask the Minister to explain why this definition has been drawn so narrowly.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. King: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) for the way in which he made his point. I think he has made a point which, at any rate in Committee, was not fully brought out. Certainly we do not intend to make any kind of distinction between the value of one kind of game or recreation and another. At the same time, I would

New Clause.—(GENERAL DUTIES OF COMMISSION IN RELATION TO NATIONAL PARKS.)


5
(1) It shall be the duty of the Commission as soon as may be after the commencement of this Act, and thereafter from time to time, to consider what areas there are in England and Wales falling within subsection (2) of section five of this Act, to determine in what order they should be designated under subsection (3) of that section, and to proceed with their designation at such times as the Commission may determine.


(2) The power of the Minister to give directions under section three of this Act shall extend to the giving of directions as to the order and time of designation of the said areas, notwithstanding that the directions may be of a specific character.


10
(3) As respects areas designated as National Parks, it shall be the duty of the Commission—


15
(a) to consider, generally and in relation to particular National Parks, in what way action needs to be taken under this Act and the Act of 1947 for the purposes specified in subsection (1) of section five of this Act, and to make such recommendations with respect thereto to the Minister and to local authorities as may appear to the Commission to be necessary or expedient, and


(b) to keep under review the progress made from time to time in accomplishing the said purposes and to make to the Minister, to local authorities or to other persons, such representations as appear to the Commission to be necessary or expedient as to any matter affecting the accomplishment of those purposes.


20
(4) Without prejudice to the generality of the last foregoing subsection, it shall be the duty of the Commission, subject to and in accordance with the following provisions of this Act in that behalf—


25
(a) as respects any area designated as a National Park, to give advice to the appropriate planning authorities as to the arrangements to be made for administering the area as a National Park;


30
(b) where it appears to the Commission, as respects any particular National Park or part thereof, that the preservation or enhancement of the natural beauty thereof presents special problems or requires special professional or technical skill, to notify their opinion to the appropriate planning authorities and, on the application of any such authority in any case where it appears to the Commission expedient for the purposes specified in subsection (1) of section five of this Act, to place the services of officers of the Commission

ask him to bear in mind that recreation or organised games may be carried out on access land. Let us take an example. Where there is access water it may not be unreasonable for a person to sail his boat over it. There would be no cause for objection in that case. However, an owner's reaction to a game of football on access land is a point which possibly requires further consideration. I am happy to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman that he has brought up a point of interest, and that we should like to study it, to see if some similar provision to that which he suggests could or could not be suitably incorporated in the Bill.

Colonel Clarke: May I ask why in the interpretation there is no definition of "open country."

Mr. King: That is in Clause 54.

Mr. Mitchison: Where is open-air recreation defined in the Bill?

Mr. Symonds: In Clause 54.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

35
at the disposal of the authority, for such period as may be agreed between the Commission and the authority and on such terms as to payment or otherwise as may be so agreed with the approval of the Minister;


40
(c) to assist such authorities in formulating proposals as to the exercise by such authorities of their powers under this Act for securing the provision of accommodation, access for open-air recreation and other facilities for persons visiting National Parks and otherwise as to the exercise of their powers under this Act as respects National Parks, and to consult with such authorities with respect to the recommendations to be made by the Commission as to the payment of grants by the Minister under this Act;


45
(d) to give advice where any Minister consults the Commission as to proposals for development of land in a National Park, or the appropriate planning authority consult them (whether in compliance with a requirement imposed under this Act or the Act of 1947 or otherwise) in connection with the preparation or amendment of a development plan or in connection with an application for permission to develop any such land;


50
(e) to make recommendations to the Minister and, where appropriate, to other Ministers as to any proposals for the development of land in a National Park, being proposals for development in a way which appears to the Commission to be inconsistent with the maintenance of the area as a Park; and


55
(f) if in any case the Commission are not satisfied that effect will be given to their recommendations or advice as to any matter mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs of this subsection, to refer the matter to the Minister and to advise the Minister as to the exercise of any powers of direction or enforcement (including powers of making orders) conferred on him by this Act or the Act of 1947.


60
(5) Nothing in this section shall be construed as modifying the effect of any provision of this Act whereby any specific power or duty is conferred or imposed on the Commission or whereby an obligation is imposed on any other person to consult with the Commission.


65
(6) In this section the expression "appropriate planning authority" means a local planning authority whose area consists of or includes the whole or any part of a National Park, and includes a local authority, not being a local planning authority, by whom any powers of a local planning authority as respects a National Park are exercisable, whether under the following provisions of this Act in that behalf or otherwise; and references in this section to a Minister include references to any Board in charge of a Government department.—[Mr. Silkin.]


70

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This Clause is to replace Clause 9 which has been deleted by an Amendment which I moved earlier, and it is being moved in pursuance of the promise which was made in Committee that we would endeavour to collect all the various functions and duties of the Commission into one Clause, instead of their being distributed over various parts of the Bill. This new Clause does that, but in the course of so doing it makes a number of amendments which I should like to indicate very briefly.
The first is in subsection (2), which gives to the Minister a right to give directions under Clause 3 as to the order and time of designation of the areas. Clause 3 gives the Minister power to give directions of a general character, and it was thought desirable that the Minister should, with his special knowledge of the proposed national park areas, indicate to the Commission those which he thought should be dealt with first because of importance

or because of urgency. In that is included the question of time and the rate of progress.
The second amendment is contained in subsection (3, b). That is largely a verbal amendment. The hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) was rather disturbed about the words in the Bill—to keep "under surveillance." We have now altered that to "keep under review." I am sorry the hon. and learned Gentleman has gone out, because I am sure that these words would have given him great happiness.
Then there is subsection (4, e) where we have made an amendment of the general powers as they were. This paragraph is intended to give the Commission a right of direct access to Government Departments. That was a point that was made in the course of the discussions. I think that that right is inherent in the Bill, but it is now made explicit.
Lastly, there is subsection (4, f), which gives to the Commission a right which


was always intended, namely, that if its advice is not taken by the various authorities to whom it gives advice, it should have the right to refer the matter to the Minister, with a recommendation in some cases that he should use his powers in default. Subject to those four variations the new Clause is really an incorporation of the various functions in the Bill which, as I said, previously were distributed in different parts of the Bill.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time.

Mrs. Castle: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed new Clause, in line 8, to leave out "and time."
This is an Amendment to subsection (2) which, as the Minister has pointed out, introduces a new situation. It is one of the new factors we find in trying to draw together all the powers of the Commission under the Bill. The Minister has explained to the Committee that already, under Clause 3, he has powers of general direction to the National Parks Commission, but that he sought under subsection (2) of the new Clause a new specific power of direction with regard to its duty of designating areas as national park areas. The purpose which the Standing Committee had in mind when this Bill was upstairs in asking for the powers of the National Parks Commission to be drawn together in one Clause was primarily to make those powers look a little more impressive. Most of us felt that the National Parks Commission emerged with a very vague status indeed. Its powers were scattered and diffused all over the Clauses. We felt that the body would not start its very important life with any proper status and air of authority. It was to increase the authority of the National Parks Commission that we asked the Minister to draw the powers together; and he agreed to do so.
Now that he has done it, what do we find? We find he has introduced a new subsection and a new power of interference by the Minister which finally whittles down to their lowest point the puny powers which the National Parks Commission already had. Indeed, it is very significant that what the Minister is doing in the subsection is to attack the only duty in the whole of this Clause in which the Commission has the power

of determination as against the power of recommendation. Quite clearly, the Minister has had cold feet over the revolutionary action he was taking in leaving any power of determination to the Commission at all. He has had second thoughts between the Committee stage and now. He has thought to himself, "Good heavens, we have left here to the Commission powers of determination, of the designation of areas as national park areas."
If hon. Members will look carefully at this new Clause, they will see that under subsection (3, a) the Commission is to have the duty to make recommendations; under subsection (3, b) to make representations; under subsection (4, b) to notify its opinion; under subsection (4, c) to consult with authorities in the making of recommendations; and under subsection (4, f) to refer matters to the Minister and advise. The Commission has one power of determination left, and that is the power of choosing the areas which shall be national park areas. Faced with that situation, the Minister decided that he clearly could not go on, and must, in addition to his powers of general direction under Clause 3, single out this last fling of independence by the National Parks Commission and nail it down.
What does he do? He says that, in addition to having general powers of general direction, he shall have powers of special direction as to order and time and designation of the special areas. The Minister has said that what he is concerned about is to see that the most urgent jobs are done first. As I am a very reasonable person, I would, most reluctantly, concede to the Minister the right, perhaps, to put in a word about priorities. All right, let him have that power to see that priorities are considered, a power which he has already. If he feels that one area urgently needs dealing with, for instance, the Norfolk Broads, let him have the power of direction of priority to see that the Norfolk Broads are dealt with before there is any further deterioration. Let him have that. But I do beg of him to accept this very modest little Amendment, so that he shall not, in addition to the priorities, settle the entire "when" as well—the time when any area shall be designated.
I suggest that if the Minister takes that power he might as well take the whole power of designation and make that advisory, too, because he who settles "when" in this matter also settles "where." Supposing the Commission want to choose the Lakeland area, the Minister can make it impossible for the Lakeland area ever to be designated as a national park area by saying, "Not today; not tomorrow; and not the day after tomorrow." By deferring it he can make it not a national park area at all. If the Minister does not accept this humble, innocent little Amendment, he will in effect be saying to the National Parks Commission, "Your final power, your last remnant of authority, shall be stripped from you, and you shall emerge finally as merely an advisory body and nothing else."

Mr. Silkin: I am much obliged to the hon. Lady for the very moderate and reasonable way in which she has moved this Amendment. I understand that her conception of being reasonable is grudgingly to admit something which is inevitable. She accepts that the Minister ought to have the right to direct the Commission as to the order in which they should designate. I think that must be right. Incidentally, I should like to correct her on one point. She referred to this one ewe lamb of determination which the Commission had, and which was now being taken away from them. In fact, they have not even this one ewe lamb, because they never did have the right of determination of the designated areas. All they could do was to designate and see if the Minister would approve or otherwise, even under the provisions as they originally stood. The Minister could always have said, "I refuse to confirm a designation order because I think you ought to have done something else first." So that really there is no great change in the situation.
I think that the Minister ought to have control over the time, and therefore over the rate, at which these designations take effect. The hon. Lady assumes that this power will be used in one direction only, and that is to slow down. Does it not occur to her that it might equally be used to expedite designation? It is just as reasonable to assume the one as to assume the other. Here let me put in a

plea for the possibility of being slow, and of asking the Commission not to hurry with designations. After all, conceivably they might decide to designate a dozen national parks all at one time, and I think that that would give the Ministry and local authorities very serious administrative indigestion. It really would cause great difficulties if they proceeded too rapidly. Some local authorities have more than one national park in their area, and it would be rather embarrassing if the Commission decided entirely to disregard administrative considerations and to designate a number of national parks together, or very rapidly one on top of the other.
5.45 p.m.
Furthermore, the hon. Lady may scorn such mundane matters as finance, but one does have to take it into account. It may be that national considerations make it essential that we should proceed rather more slowly than we otherwise might have done. This subsection gives us that power. On the other hand, under this we can direct the Commission to go more rapidly than they otherwise would have done. I think that those powers are essential. The hon. Lady always proceeds on the assumption that no Minister, either past, present or future, is to be trusted, and that only the National Parks Commission is to be trusted, even though it has not yet been set up. I can assure her that Ministers normally have a due sense of responsibility, and having passed a Measure of this kind I think that Ministers will be anxious to do the right thing and ensure that it is a success, that national parks are designated in due course and with due speed, having regard to all the circumstances.
I think that these words must remain because they are essential for the proper administration of this Bill. In these circumstances, I hope that my hon. Friend will not press the Amendment. My own conception of the thing at present is that the Commission will designate all the proposed areas very much within the period recommended by the Hobhouse Committee. I see no reason at the moment for departing from their suggestions, but the Minister must have the opportunity of reconsidering the matter and making other proposals if he considers it essential.

Mr. Edward Davies: Could the Minister tell us what time the Hobhouse Committee recommended?

Mr. Silkin: About three or four years.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed new Clause, in line 20, at the end to insert:
(c) to keep under review all cases where a direction has been given under subsection (2) of section seven of this Act, and to make representations to the Minister if at any time they consider such a direction should be revoked.
I cannot emulate the passion of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), and even if the Minister refuses to accept this Amendment I shall not be able to accuse him of nailing down the only fling of independence the Commission possesses. Nevertheless, I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to this quite important point. Briefly the point is this. Some concern was felt on all sides of the Standing Committee at the powers under Clause 7 (2) to provide that in certain circumstances in areas of national parks there shall only be joint advisory committees with the power in the hands of the local planning authorities. That is a rather doubtful experiment which may not lead to the powers which we want to see exercised being exercised in any co-ordinated way where these directions are given.
In exercising the direction in Clause 7 (2) the Minister has to consult the Commission before the direction is actually made. Once such a direction is made we should like to feel that it is the specific duty of the Commission to watch what is happening in these areas, and if they are not satisfied that the joint advisory committee is a satisfactory body to administer a national park they should have the power to go back to the Minister and make representations to him, saying that the direction should be revoked. That is the short point covered by the Amendment. I hope the Minister will accept it, or, failing that, that he will give us an assurance that the Commission already possesses this power under the new Clause.

Colonel Clarke: I hope the Minister will resist this Amendment. The posi-

tion has been considerably strengthened by the Government Amendment to the proviso in subsection (2), which was moved earlier, and which insisted that there should be a joint advisory committee. I believe the reasons that were given during the Debate on the Committee stage by myself and other hon. Members on this side are reasons which are permanent and not likely to change. I do not wish to go through them in detail, but the main points of our argument supporting an advisory body as against a joint planning board were, first of all, that the area of the particular potential national park that was referred to, namely, all the South Downs from Eastbourne, is some 80 miles long and very narrow with bad communications from end to end.
In order that the members of the joint planning board should be able to attend the meetings they would have long distances to travel, involving practically a whole day's journeying for one meeting of only a few hours. This would present considerable difficulty to those responsible for getting the type of people we want to serve. I went on to say that it might be simpler to meet in London, which, of course, would take a whole day and involve considerable expense.
It does not seem to me that those reasons are likely to change, and the idea of keeping the matter under review means a sort of probation on responsible bodies like the county councils—not one county council but three county councils, East and West Sussex and Hampshire—and the county boroughs of Brighton and Eastbourne. It is a little derogatory to local government bodies of the highest kind, particularly those with the records which those bodies I have mentioned possess.
I do not want to weary the House by repeating what was said in Committee, and stating what these county councils and county boroughs have done to preserve the Downs, but it will be remembered that under the none-too-powerful machinery of the 1932 Act, East Sussex managed to preserve an area of 28,000 acres, which cost the county council £60,000, besides other moneys spent by rural districts who supported them Brighton, of course, has bought freehold a very large Down area, as has East-


bourne. With their record, and in view of the arguments for a joint advisory committee rather than a board, I hope the Amendment will be resisted.

Mr. Silkin: Not altogether for the reasons given by the hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke), I also ask the Committee not to accept this Amendment. It is largely unnecessary. The case where the Amendment would arise is where there is a joint advisory committee set up under the provisions of Clause 7, and the Amendment would put on the Commission the duty of watching the progress of the advisory committee and keeping it under review, presumably to make representations if it were found that the advisory committee was unsatisfactory. I have never found constant watching over a particular body is a satisfactory process. Somehow things never go so slow as when there is constant supervision.
We do not want the Commission to be constantly keeping under review all these advisory committees, and I do not regard that as necessarily their function. I regard their function as watching the progress of the work that is to be done in creating a national park and providing the necessary facilities. They have ample powers, and, indeed, under Clause 7 they are required to keep under review—the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) will be glad to note the words "keep under review"—the progress made from time to time in accomplishing such purposes. That is what they ought to keep under review rather than a joint advisory committee.
If it should be found that the purposes of the joint advisory committee are not being properly carried out they will make representations. They have been specifically empowered to make them, and naturally the question of the position of the advisory committee will come up for consideration, while consideration will be given as to whether the lack of progress in carrying out the purposes is due to the fact that there is an advisory committee rather than an executive one. In that way they will get an opportunity of making suggestions. It is the words "keep under review" that I personally do not like. I hope my hon. Friend will

not press the Amendment, particularly as I give him the assurance which he has asked for that in all cases where an advisory committee is found not to work there are ample facilities for the Commission to make representations, which it is the duty of the Minister to consider, and, if he considers it necessary, set up a joint planning board in its place.

Mr. Hughes: In view of what my right hon. Friend has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. H. Strauss: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed new Clause, in line 49, at the end, to insert:
(e) to make recommendations to the Minister with regard to applications for permission to develop land in a National Park as to the most effective administration for the purposes of National Parks of all statutory provisions applicable to such applications and such permission and in particular (without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing words) of subsection (4) of section sixteen and section twenty of the Act of 1947.
The right hon. Gentleman will remember that on the last day of the Committee I raised by a new Clause the question of enabling high standards of building to be enforced in the national parks. Owing to the desire to make very rapid progress, my arguments and those of the Parliamentary Secretary were very briefly made. This Amendment, of course, is rather different, and I hope that the reason why I want some new words, either those proposed or some on the same lines, can be explained clearly to the Committee and that it will command general sympathy.
6.0 p.m.
It is obvious that materials used for roofing, for example, will make a great difference in a national park. It may be that a slate roof instead of a roof of corrugated sheeting will have a very different effect on the landscape. It is, of course, a fact that under the provisions of the 1947 Act the planning authority has control of design, elevation and so forth. It is, however, possible that the desirable control of, say, the use of appropriate materials may be rendered a dead letter by one or other of two things; either by the planning authority not enforcing the use of what may be a more expensive material or by the authority,


or the Minister on appeal, saying that the development can be permitted only if such a more expensive material is used and the developer not being prepared to go to that expense.
When I raised that difficulty in moving a new Clause during the Committee stage, the Parliamentary Secretary—I have already explained how I sympathise with him in the necessary shortening of his argument—put forward an argument which seemed to say that my point would be met in one or other of two ways. It could be met in certain circumstances by an adjustment of the development charge, and in other cases by the fact that compensation would be payable under the law as it stood. There will, however, be cases where neither of those things will be true. The rebuilding of a man's own premises, where the question of amenity may be very directly concerned, does not attract either a development charge or any question of compensation.
In the words that I propose to add, I am asking for nothing more than that a duty shall be placed on the Commission to watch the development in national parks and applications for permission to develop land there, and to make representations to the Minister on the most effective administration, for the purposes of national parks, of all the statutory provisions applicable to such applications and such permission. I have some hope that the Minister will have no great objection to my words so far, even if he has no great enthusiasm for them. If he is prepared to accept my words down to that point, I am prepared to drop the last two lines of the Amendment I have on the Order Paper. Amateur drafting is never entirely satisfactory, not least when it is done in a hurry by a lawyer, and it may be that the words from "and in particular" to the end of my Amendment the Minister will not think wholly appropriate. It is my view that the development of land in national parks should be watched by the Commission, who should advise the Minister on the most effective administration, for the purposes of national parks, of all statutory provisions that may be applicable. I believe that my view is generally shared in the Committee.

Mr. Silkin: There is no disagreement in principle between us on this Amend-

ment, but I do not think the Amendment is necessary. I find myself, therefore, unable to take part in the Dutch auction to which the hon. and learned Member invited me. When I have explained to him why the Amendment is unnecessary, he will probably agree with me. I do not dispute at all the desirability of the Commission watching the type of development that is taking place in national park areas and areas of outstanding natural beauty. That is essential, if we are to maintain and enhance the beauty of the areas as is provided for in the Bill. Undesirable or unharmonious development can very definitely mar the beauty. This injury can be done in a great many ways other than that which is contemplated in the Amendment. The hon. and learned Gentleman probably recognised that, by offering to delete the last two lines in which he particularises two cases.
I should like to provide that the Commission should have the opportunity of seeing definite classes of application for development which come before planning authorities. I have the power to ensure that that takes place. Under Section 15 of the 1947 Act, which is in a way a re-enactment of the Act of 1943, the Minister can direct planning authorities to refer to him any individual application for permission to develop, or all applications of a particular class, and he can then refer those to the National Parks Commission. It is definitely my intention to do that.
I should like to consider very carefully the particular classes of case to which this Amendment should apply. Obviously, one does not want to overload the machine or to force the National Parks Commission to set up an elaborate organisation of its own to examine large numbers of applications for development. Nor does one want to slow down the time taken for giving the decision in regard to development which this proposal must inevitably involve. We want to do that in the smallest number of cases, but a matter for careful consideration is the class of case which it will be necessary to refer to the Commission for advice.
Moreover, it will be a matter of trial and error. It may be, for instance, that it is unnecessary to refer to the Commission at all a large number of cases or the class of case which at one time one thought one should refer to them. One


will find that local planning authorities are dealing with that class of case quite satisfactorily. I do not altogether share the fear of the hon. and learned Gentleman that, by and large, the local planning authorities will not deal with these cases satisfactorily. It will be a matter of trial and error, and perhaps of considering in the first instance what kind of case I should direct local planning authorities to submit to the Ministry and thence to the Commission. The class of case may change from time to time.
Another point which the hon. and learned Gentleman may have overlooked is that there will normally be on every planning committee in the areas about which we are speaking a number of persons who are co-opted and who have been appointed on the recommendation of the National Parks Commission, and their special job will be to keep an eye on these applications and to see that in proper cases, where the local planning authority looks like going wrong, the Ministry are informed and, presumably, also the National Parks Commission. If a decision is given which is in conflict with good development, the Minister has power to revoke. That power has been fairly frequently used in the past and would be used again if necessary. Therefore, I think that ample powers exist for doing what the hon. and learned Gentleman wishes, and I can assure him that they will be used to the fullest. In these circumstances I hope that he will not press the Amendment, because the Bill is already long enough, among other reasons, and one does not want to overload it.

Mr. H. Strauss: I am about to take the course which I think will be agreeable to the right hon. Gentleman, but I should like to make it clear that I was not fearing so much that the planning authority would not do its best but that under the powers it might find that the best was not good enough. Let us take the case of wishing to impose the use of a certain roofing material where a much cheaper roofing material might be available and might not be inappropriate in a quite different district. It may be a little difficult for the planning authority or the right hon. Gentleman, however anxious they may be to secure the use of the right material, to do so, unless it carries some

right of compensation to the person concerned. It may be objected that that is not directly dealt with in my Amendment, but the National Parks Commission could advise if that is—

Mr. Silkin: How does the hon. and learned Gentleman confer these powers by his Amendment?

Mr. Strauss: By giving a duty to the National Parks Commission to watch these matters and to advise the Minister. One of the things they might clearly be compelled to advise the Minister would be certain quite brief but necessary new legislation. Having made that extremely handsome admission, let me say how glad I was to hear the Minister say how valuable he thought the powers were which I managed to get into the Act of 1943. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will consider whether it is desirable to insert any further words in another place. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed new Clause, in line 70, after "in," to insert "the."
When introducing the new Clause, the Minister drew attention to one new point in it, namely that in subsection (4, e) he had made it clear beyond all doubt that the National Parks Commission should have direct access to Ministers on any point which they thought of sufficient importance. The last words in the Clause are:
References in this section to a Minister include references to any Board in charge of a Government department.
I want to make sure what the right hon. Gentleman means by those words. Is he visualising the Board taking charge of the department or the department taking charge of the Board? There are boards in charge of Government departments. I cite the Board of Trade, which includes among its membership Mr. Speaker and the Archbishop of Canterbury. I am told that this august Board very seldom meets for the purpose of discharging its duties and that its president alone exercises this lofty jurisdiction. There is also the Board of Admiralty in whom is vested the power of what used to be the Lord High Admiral of England.
It may be that the words:
Board in charge of a Government department.
refer to the Board of Trade and the Board of Admiralty. If so I should have thought it better to put the words in the Clause because the words are ambiguous as they now stand. The draftsman may not have kept abreast of recent political developments. There has been a vast proliferation of boards in the lifetime of this Government. We have the Coal Board and we are threatened with the Iron and Steel Board. If hon. Members opposite get their way, we may have a great number of boards which, if they are not entirely in charge of Government Departments, are at least powerful instruments of policy of these departments, and it may be held that the Minister is in charge of them. It would probably not be very easy to find out who takes charge in every case.
6.15 p.m.
I should like the Commission to have direct access not only to the Board of Admiralty, the Board of Trade and other Ministers but to other boards and authorities as well. When we consider the object at which we are all striving with so much unanimity on both sides of the Committee—to preserve to some extent the amenities and natural beauties of the areas to be considered as national parks—it is clear that potentially great offenders exist among those boards. The Electricity Authority has frequently offended or called attention to itself by erecting cooling towers, which are not objects of beauty, in rural areas, and for the purposes of their necessary service to the public they have to carry high tension wires and pylons over a great deal of open country. The Gas Authority has at its disposal for the disfigurement of our land unsightly objects, which are no doubt necessary, called gas holders. There has recently been a dispute about a gas holder at Otford.
I move this Amendment with an exploratory intention. My view is that if the Minister really means in the words he has used the Board of Trade and the Board of Admiralty, he should say so specifically. If, on the other hand, he means to include all these other authorities, he should use words which are wide enough to do so, because although coal has a board, the others are called authori-
ties, councils and goodness knows what. If the Minister would undertake to look at this again and make it clear that the Commission can go to the Electricity Authority or the Gas Authority with a protest about a project without having to go through its Minister in every case, it would be an advantage to the Bill.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: An Amendment in my name which has not been called was designed to deal with much the same point as this Amendment. I hope that the Minister will indicate that the National Parks Commission will have the kind of power envisaged in this Amendment to go direct to a body such as the British Electricity Authority. Let us imagine that the National Parks Commission was in existence. Plans are afoot for a hydroelectric scheme for North Wales. They are known to be drawn up by the British Electricity Authority, and very responsible people like Mr. Justice Birkett, the chairman of the Standing Committee on National Parks, and many others are very concerned.
It would appear to be reasonable and sensible that at this stage of the drawing up of the plans by the British Electricity Authority, the National Parks Commission, becoming cognisant of the proposals, should have the power to go to the British Electricity Authority and say to it direct, "These proposals are very interesting and important. We recognise the need for electricity, but they will have serious repercussions on North Wales from the point of view of amenities and national parks." In that way it would be possible to get the view of the National Parks Commission and of the British Electricity Authority together, perhaps by the Chairman of the National Parks Commission taking Lord Citrine out to lunch and getting some reasonable adjustment of views at the planning stage.
If this Amendment is not accepted, if the only meaning of this part of the Clause is confined to the Board of Trade and the Board of Admiralty—who never meet and who therefore can never take any interest in the National Parks Commission—it would mean that, in order to have that desirable interchange of views at this stage, the National Parks Commission would have to go to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, that Ministry would have to go to the Ministry


of Fuel and Power who, in turn, would have to come back to the British Electricity Authority before there could be even informal or reasonable discussion of these proposals. That would be a more elaborate and expensive procedure and more gentlemen would have to take each other out to lunch before we could get a reasonable exchange of views.
Therefore I hope the Minister will either accept this Amendment or will indicate that in his view it will be right and proper for the National Parks Commission and the British Electricity Authority to get together in the planning stage when developments that will affect national parks areas are discussed.

Mr. Silkin: First as regards the clarification of the new Clause, I would say that what was intended was the narrower of the two alternatives put forward by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: The Board of Trade.

Mr. Silkin: The Board of Trade and the Board of Admiralty. That was the intention. Whether it is right or not is another matter, but that is what we meant by using the words we did. Of course, I hope that the Chairman of the National Parks Commission will use freely the right he has in the Bill of having informal talks with the chairmen of other similar bodies or of nationalised undertakings, and even of receiving a lunch from the Chairman of the Electricity Authority rather than giving one. I think a great deal can be done by informal discussion, and there is nothing in the Bill or in the new Clause which prevents that. In fact, it will be encouraged.
Of course, in the end, if there is disagreement it is bound to get back to the Minister. Neither of the two chairmen at the end of the day can themselves determine a case where there is disagreement, and the Chairman of the National Parks Commission will have to come back to the Minister of Town and Country Planning, the Chairman of the Electricity Authority will have to go back to his Minister, and the two Ministers will have to argue it out and possibly bring in other Ministers as well. That is unavoidable. As I visualise it, there will be a good deal

of agreement arrived at as the result of informal discussions, and I shall encourage them to the fullest possible extent.
Whether it is necessary to put words into the Bill to indicate something which to me seems to be perfectly obvious, I am not sure. I should like to think about it again to see whether it is desirable to put in something, and whether the simple expedient of the right hon. Gentleman is the best way of doing it. I have my doubts on the latter point because it seems to me to be open to the same charge of ambiguity as is the Clause itself, but I gladly give an undertaking to consider the matter again at a later stage in order to see whether it is necessary to put something in the Clause which at the moment is explicit in my view.

Mr. Morrison: I have listened to what the Minister has said and I agree with him that perhaps this is not the best way of expressing what is desired. However, there still remains the point of the ambiguity of the language used. The expression "any Board in charge of a Government department" might be read to mean either a Board like the Board of Admiralty or the Board of Trade, or a Board like the Coal Board, and the words "in charge" do not make it clear. I accept the assurance of the Minister that the Act will be so administered as to encourage the National Parks Commission to go direct to the executive boards such as the Electricity and Gas authorities or, at least, that there will be no hindrances placed in their way. While I think it would be better to say straight out, "Board of Trade and Board of Admiralty," as the Minister has undertaken to look at this matter again, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be added to the Bill."

Mr. H. Strauss: I am sorry that for a moment I was away from the Committee when the Minister mentioned the words in line 17 "to keep under review." That is a much better alternative to the one I attacked in Committee, but I still wish to make it clear that the new words are not mine. The other matter to which I would call the attention of the Minister and, through him, of the draftsman


is that in line 46 he has the words "consult them." That seems to me to be good, straightforward English. In two other passages in this Clause he has "to consult with." He had better make up his mind which of the two forms he believes in and have it uniform throughout the Clause and throughout the Bill. Personally I think it is better to consult somebody than to consult with him.

Mr. Emrys Roberts: Although I am grateful to the Minister for collecting together the general duties of the Commission in one Clause, I think we are entitled to ask how the Commission will work in regard to the powers given in this Clause and in regard to its constitution. Later on the Order Paper there is a new Clause standing in my name and that of my hon. Friends—(Welsh Parks Commission)—which provides for the setting up of a Welsh Parks sub-commission. I understand from the Table that that Clause is not in Order and that it will not be called, so I should like to say a word or two about that aspect of the National Parks Commission now.
We had a full discussion in the Standing Committee on the proposal whether there should be a sub-commission for Wales, bearing in mind that over 1,300 square miles in Wales are intended to be designated as national parks. We there made the point that a National Parks Commission sitting in London cannot possibly understand the rural economy in Wales or the Welsh way of life sufficiently to advise the local planning, authorities in regard to their duties under this Bill. The consideration of this Clause confirms me still further in that point of view.
The National Parks Commission has to designate the areas. Among those areas it has to designate will be areas in Wales. Surely that should be the task of a sub-commission sitting in Wales composed of people from Wales who know the conditions there? It has, further, to keep under review the progress made by local authorities. That again, I submit, cannot be done from Whitehall. It has to advise local authorities on local matters, to deal with special problems and to tender advice to the Minister. None of those things can be dealt with as effectively by a central commission as by a local sub-commission.
6.30 p.m.
The hon. Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes) referred to the very important hydro-electric proposals for North Wales. He rather alarmed me by suggesting that the future of the area and the people most concerned with the proposals—the people who live there—could be disposed of by a lunch between the Chairman of the National Parks Commission and the Chairman of the British Electricity Authority. The person who would be in the best position to discuss those proposals and their effect on the countryside would be the chairman of a Welsh sub-commission.
I am very sorry that the Minister has not accepted the lead given to him by the Minister of Agriculture in the setting up of an agricultural land sub-commission for Wales. We have met the Minister on this point and have put our arguments to him, but we have had no adequate reason from him why this proposal was not accepted. We certainly did not receive a satisfactory answer from the Parliamentary Secretary during the Committee stage. I hope that the Minister will say something about it before we leave the Clause.

Mr. Watkins: I wish to reinforce the arguments which have been put forward by the hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. Emrys Roberts). I understand that this is the only opportunity we shall have during the progress of the Bill to discuss that important Amendment to the new Clause which appears on the Order Paper.
The Clause leads us, as Welsh Members, to ask for special consideration to be given to the national parks in Wales. I hope that by now hon. Members will have read the reply given in Committee by the Parliamentary Secretary, a reply which was one of the most disappointing ever given during the Committee stage of the Bill. We are not asking the Minister for anything new. We are simply asking, if possible within the Clause, for power to set up a sub-commission in Wales. We already have such bodies under the Agriculture Act, 1947, and under the Hill Farming and Forestry Acts, whereby a body of persons with powers delegated to them by a national Commission—not all the powers


of the Commission, but matters delegated to them by the Commission—may discuss questions which are of significance to Wales.
It may be asked why we need such a body in Wales. The answer is that we are a nation of our own. We have our own language, our own national library and our own national museum, all of which have something to do with a national parks sub-commission. Every county council in Wales has agreed with the new Clause and I hope, therefore, that the Minister will say something about our proposal. Even the Welsh Tourist Board, and every Welsh committee of which one can think, have been in favour of it. The only person who says nothing at all about it is the Minister, who has a great deal of love for Wales, but whose Department has let him down. I cannot understand why he has not helped us. Amongst the suggestions which have been made to my right hon. Friend, it has been suggested that we should have two Welsh members on the Commission. That would be all right if there were only three members on the Commission, but it is possible that we might have only two members out of nine or 10. Rather than have one Welsh member on the Commission, I would much prefer that that member should be the chairman of a Welsh sub-commission.
I hope that the Minister will give us greater assurances and a better reply than the Parliamentary Secretary did, so that we can tell our people in Wales that his Department are sympathetic and will look at the matter again; and that if the national parks in England do not come up to expectations and those of Wales do, the status for which we ask may be given to Wales at a later stage. I beg the Minister to give us some assurances better than the replies we have had from the Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. George Thomas: I support the hon. Members for Merioneth (Mr. Emrys Roberts) and Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins), who have put forward a perfectly reasonable request. It is not often that it lies within the power of my right hon. Friend to make such a gesture as this to the Welsh people. It is obvious that Wales will have a delightful park area of its own, but under the terms of the new Clause the Central

Commission will have to advise the Minister on the development of land in that area. Surely the Welsh people themselves should have a voice in the development of land in Wales. We are giving the Minister an opportunity to make the Bill something really substantial for the Principality. I earnestly trust that he will realise that the advice which has been given to him is not only well-meant but is worth taking.

Mr. C. Williams: I must support the Welsh Members on this occasion. I belong to another Celtic race and I say quite frankly that on these occasions it is absolutely right and just that there should be a really strong protest in the House of Commons on the point of view which has been so ably expressed by three Welsh Members today. All too often very little sympathy is shown in Whitehall for distant places. In expressing my support for what has been said on behalf of Wales, and in hoping that the Minister, in the short time left to him, will give them the sympathy for which they have asked and which they deserve, I hope I may go further and express the view that other Governments in the future also will give that sympathy which is deserved.
Just as it is necessary to make this appeal for Wales on the Clause which is before us, it is equally necessary that we should appeal for consultation with local interests for a park which might be set up in, say, North Devon or Cornwall. For all these places far away from London, it is only right that on such rare occasions as people like myself get the opportunity of speaking in the House of Commons we should speak up for our people and for the areas we represent. It is all very well for people from London, Yorkshire and the big towns—they are strong and powerful—but we are not used to being called the "Celtic fringes"; I should prefer to call them the centres from which originality really springs. We get our chances all too seldom.
I wish that on this occasion, when Welsh Members and a representative of the West Country have been speaking, we could get a sympathetic reply from the Parliamentary Secretary, who still represents a West Country constituency. I wish also that we could have allied to us today the noble Lady the Member for Anglesey


(Lady Megan Lloyd George), whose name and courage we all respect, and whom we expect on this occasion to speak in the name of Wales, for which she and her family have done so much, although naturally she has not that distinguished Liberal outlook of her brother at the present time.

Mr. Silkin: I should like to assure hon. Members who have spoken on this matter that the problem of Wales has received very serious and sympathetic consideration. I realise that to some extent the fact that a sub-commission of the kind referred to has been set up and sanctified under the agriculture and forestry Acts is an encouragement to them to ask for more. I congratulate the hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. Emrys Roberts) on his ingenuity in finding a way of circumventing the Rules by speaking on the Amendment which has not been called.
I very much regret that after the most careful consideration I am not able to do anything like that for which the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have asked. I will give the Committee the reasons. I think the agriculture and forestry Acts are a false analogy. In the case of those Acts a body was set up as an executive body to do a job on the spot. I suppose there is some case for setting up a sub-committee or sub-commission of those bodies in order to do the job in Wales, but, in the case of this Bill, it has been pointed out over and over again, sometimes as a criticism of the Bill and sometimes as a virtue, that the National Parks Commission is purely an advisory body.
What the hon. Member and his friends are asking is that there should be another committee set up in Wales to advise the advisers. [Interruption.] Is not that so? That will be their function. I thought their function would be to advise the Commission—

Mr. Emrys Roberts: No.

Mr. Silkin: That has been the case put up, that it would be a body which would advise the Commission on the discharge of their functions in Wales.

Mr. Roberts: And advise local planning authorities in Wales, looking at Wales as a whole.

Mr. Silkin: A sub-commission of the Commission is a body answerable to the

Commission itself. If it is now suggested that it should be a separate, independent body that is going much further than is even contained in the agriculture and forestry Acts. Apparently, the appetite of the hon. Member increases. I thought the claim always was that it should be merely a sub-commission of the Commission and should be anwerable to the Commission itself.
In the course of making his case, the hon. Member found it necessary to attack the Commission. What do these advisers, sitting in Whitehall, know, what can they know about Wales, or Northumberland? What can they know about Dartmoor, Exmoor or any other park when they are sitting in Whitehall; therefore, why a Commission at all? Surely the arguments put forward against the Commission dealing with Wales apply with equal force to the Commission dealing with other parts of the country.

Mr. Watkins: We cannot help that.

Mr. Silkin: I know that hon. Members cannot help that, but they would destroy the Commission altogether. If they say that the Commission is of no value, what is the value of a sub-commission of a Commission which is of no value?

Mr. Emrys Roberts: Northumberland is not a separate nation; Wales is. The Minister must grasp that essential fact.

Mr. Silkin: However sympathetic one may be to Welsh nationalism, this is not a Bill to promote Welsh nationalism. It is a National Parks Bill and is designed to promote the welfare and progress of national parks. The hon. Member has not said a single word to show in what way the national parks would be furthered by setting up this sub-commission.
He made a great point, and I sympathise with him, that these parks should be administered by people who under-Wales—and so they will be. That is the whole purpose of the manner in which the Bill has been drawn; that the national parks should be administered by local people. Therefore the National Park of Snowdonia will probably be administered by a joint board consisting of Caernarvonshire and Merioneth. I presume that the members of those county councils are all Welshmen, fully familiar with conditions in North Wales and capable of


representing the outlook and views of North Wales, and they will be the people actually responsible for administering those national parks. The people responsible for administering the Pembroke National Park will be members of the Pembroke County Council, presumably all Welshmen, although I understand that Pembroke is the most English speaking county in Wales.

6.45 p.m.

Lady Megan Lloyd George: That is true of only half of the county.

Mr. Silkin: I withdraw that statement. But that is the position, that each of the national parks in Wales will be administered by the appropriate local authorities, which will consist of Welshmen.
Therefore, we shall get all the local colour and advice and nationalism we can possibly want. There is a regional office for Wales of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning and at the head of that office there is a Welsh speaking Welshman, born and bred in Wales and knowing all about Welsh conditions. That office is fully capable of advising, where necessary, on Welsh matters, and, in fact, the representative of my Ministry in Wales keeps us informed on Welsh conditions and on everything else we may have to know about Wales There is also the National Council for Wales, which was recently set up.

Lady Megan Lloyd George: Oh!

Mr. Silkin: That National Council for Wales is presided over by a Welshman and there are Welshmen on it who are, presumably, there to advise about conditions in Wales on cultural and other matters.

Mr. Emrys Roberts: Advisers to advisers.

Mr. Silkin: Yes, if it is thought necessary they are there available. There will be others. There will be co-opted on to each of the planning committees a number of people recommended by the National Parks Commission and the bias will be in favour of people who are familiar with the conditions in the national parks. They, also, will be an effective link between the local authority and the National Parks Commission.

With all this machinery there is no fear whatever that the views of the people of Wales, the views of the people who will be affected by the national parks, will not fully be before the National Parks Commission and the Minister.
There is the further point which I made when I saw the hon. Member for Merioneth and his colleagues. I promised him that I should be prepared to consider, if suitable, representation of Wales or the appointment of one or more Welshmen to the National Parks Commission. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Cardiff (Mr. G. Thomas) thinks that is not sufficient. If that is rejected—

Mr. G. Thomas: It is not rejected.

Mr. Silkin: —that is one more means of ensuring that the views, hopes, aims and aspirations in Wales will be fully before the Commission. This case cannot be made out on the grounds of achieving the purposes of this Bill. This is quite naturally and understandably a means of raising the national prestige of Wales which may be a very desirable object, but it is not the object of this Bill. It is my business to ensure in this Bill that the national parks are administered in the most efficient and economical manner without the creation of unnecessary machinery. I hope that is being achieved while at the same time achieving all the legitimate purposes of those putting forward this scheme.

Lady Megan Lloyd George: I intervene briefly to say how disappointing the Minister's reply has been—as disappointing as the reply we received in Committee upstairs. The Minister has on occasion shown great sympathy and understanding of Welsh problems but he has today shown a singular lack of understanding. He has missed the point of the whole proposal and suggestion put forward by my hon. Friend. He says, "You attack the Commission," and refers to the fact that there are no representatives from Northumberland or Cornwall. I fully appreciate and support the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) in claiming kinship with my race, a kinship which I am glad to acknowledge on all occasions. As I say, the Minister refers to the fact that there is no representative from Northumberland, etc.
The whole point is that we are asking for representation not because we are a county but because we are a country. The right hon. Gentleman has completely missed that point here. Under this Bill a larger proportion of the land of Wales than of England is to be designated as a national park. Is it not reasonable that we should be allowed even to advise advisors if that is necessary, and I am sure that they will need advice—to advise them how these national parks should be formed and administered particularly if any special problems affecting the Principality arise? An important problem is arising now in connection with the hydroelectric scheme which it is suggested should be incorporated in the most famous of the two national parks. It might be said that these are problems which affect us in a purely economic sense, but if the right hon. Gentleman has any understanding of Welsh feelings he will know that they affect us in a much more fundamental way.
I would ask him to reconsider this matter. He has not given us a single reason why we should not have a sub-commission. He threw in an observation at the end of his speech about administration. That is the same old argument which is always put up when a reasonable claim is made on behalf of Wales—tidiness of administration, the argument "We cannot do because it will complicate matters, it will have to go through more channels." But if one knows that it will mean as it will in this case, more effective administration why not meet the claim? It would be far better to do so. The Minister will secure far smoother working of this machinery if he has a Welsh sub-Commission because he will find that Welshmen are much more easily dealt with by Welshmen—or Welshwomen.
Therefore, I again ask him to reconsider the case which has been made. I say, in all seriousness, that these continual refusals to acknowledge the reasonable claims of the Welsh people are exacerbating Welsh feeling. Is it really worth doing that in regard to this Amendment? What will it cost the right hon. Gentleman to give what he is asked to give? If he gives it he will find a ready response and a national response in Wales. If he does not give it he will be surprised at the public feeling which will be aroused.

Mr. M. Philips Price: rose—

The Chairman: I think that the Committee should now be able to come to a decision. In any event it is doubtful whether the discussion is in Order.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(POWER OF DRAINAGE AUTHORITIES TO DO WORK IN NATURE RESERVES.)

Where the Nature Conservancy, a local authority or any other person enter into an agreement with a drainage authority for the doing by that authority of any work on land managed as a nature reserve by, or under an agreement with, the Conservancy or a local authority, no limitation imposed by law on the capacity of the drainage authority by virtue of the constitution thereof shall operate so as to prevent the drainage authority carrying out the agreement.—[Mr. King.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. King: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This Clause has already been discussed in reverse by the Committee. We previously asked the Committee to approve a Clause giving powers to the Nature Conservancy and local authorities running a nature reserve to employ a drainage authority as their agent. This Clause permits drainage authorities to be employed as the agent of the Nature Conservancy or the local authority in carrying out work where the Nature Conservancy or the local authority require them to do so.

Mr. David Renton: This new Clause draws attention to the fact that water may be of vital importance to nature reserves. That is so throughout the Fenland area. I welcome this new Clause, but I should like to express regret that it does not go far enough. In order to explain my reasons, perhaps I might explain the position in regard to a private nature reserve in my constituency. Hon. Members will recollect that when the Fens were drained a large proportion of the natural wild life of those parts disappeared, for various reasons. This private nature reserve is included in the area administered by the Middle Level Commissioners, and in it there are two very famous and exceptional butterflies. Those butterflies are


there because they live on a rare plant which is very thirsty and which must have water, and if the level of the water is lowered by the drainage commissioners there is a danger that the plant will die and that the two rare butterflies will have nothing upon which to feed and will be exterminated within the British Isles.

Mr. Osbert Peake: Only two?

Mr. Renton: It may be that there are others as well. I am speaking of species and not individual specimens; I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention.
The recent exceptional dry weather we have had brought matters to a head recently for this nature reserve. The level of the water sank lower and lower, and the society which is responsible for the nature reserve had to arrange a hasty meeting with the drainage commissioners, who were most fortunately co-operative and amenable in the matter. One can envisage circumstances, however, in which there might be a conflict of interest. In reading Part III of this Bill, which deals with nature conservation, I am a little surprised to find that there is no provision, so far as I can see, to ensure that there shall be a sufficient level of water in all nature reserves where that matter is of importance.
Therefore, while welcoming this Clause because it at least introduces some reference to co-operation between the Nature Conservancy and the drainage board, I regret that it does not go further and make it obligatory on the drainage board to maintain that level of water which will enable the Nature Conservancy to be an effective nature reserve. By the amplification of this Clause in another place, it would be possible to achieve that aim. I shall be glad to hear what the Parliamentary Secretary has to say about the point.

Mr. King: The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) has made a most interesting speech, but the burden of his complaint is that there are not even greater powers in the Bill, or specific powers, dealing with the problem which he raised. I scarcely think that one would expect to find that provided in the Bill.

The Bill contains no kind of limit on the sort of agreement into which the Nature Conservancy may enter with a drainage board. If problems arise in the Nature Conservancy or if there is an agreement with a private reserve, there is nothing in the Bill to prevent the taking of such action as the hon. Member has indicated should be taken.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Renton: The point is that there is nothing to compel it, either.

Mr. King: Well, it is the duty of the Nature Conservancy to carry out their function, and their function is to conserve nature. If it is necessary to do what the hon. Gentleman suggests, they have the full right to enter into agreements with drainage boards to do that.

Mr. Renton: Supposing that they fail to obtain the necessary co-operation from the drainage board, what is to happen then? Is the Nature Conservancy to withdraw and surrender its intention, or what is to happen?

Mr. King: The hon. Gentleman is putting a hypothetical question—

Mr. Renton: Not at all.

Mr. King: —which cannot possibly be answered. In this country we have a variety of local authorities and any one of them may fail to agree with another on any subject. It is impossible to lay down in an Act of Parliament which authority in such circumstances shall be able to dictate to the other, and that is what the hon. Gentleman is asking.

Mr. Renton: The Parliamentary Secretary described my point as a hypothetical one. I thought I had explained—I hope with some clarity—that it was a practical point, based on circumstances which have occurred during the past few weeks, and may very easily occur again. Surely this is a matter which must receive further consideration. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will at least give an undertaking to consider the matter further. I am quite willing to give him the facts which will enable him to get in touch with the authorities concerned in this particular case, if that would be of assistance to him.

Mr. King: Let me say at once that I would be most interested to receive the particulars of any such difficulty, if the


hon. Gentleman will let me have them; but so far as the law is concerned, I do not think that he has produced any argument to make one think that this particular Clause should be altered.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(LIABILITY FOR REPAIR OF PUBLIC PATHS.)

(1) Subject to the following provisions of this Part of this Act, the rule of law whereby a highway is repairable by the inhabitants at large shall apply to all public paths, whether coming into existence before or after the commencement of this Act, notwithstanding anything contained in any enactment passed or made before the commencement of this Act; and accordingly the enactments relating to highways so repairable shall have effect in relation to all such public paths.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of the last foregoing subsection,—

(a) no order made under section twenty-one of the Highway Act, 1864, or section twenty-four of the Highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act, 1878, (which sections provide for the making of orders for discontinuing the maintenance of unnecessary highways) shall have effect after the commencement of this Act as respects any public path; and
(b) after the commencement of this Act no proceedings shall be instituted under either of the said sections for an order relating to a public path.

(3) Where apart from this section any person would be under an obligation to repair a public path, whether under any enactment, or by reason of tenure, enclosure, prescription or otherwise,—

(a) the operation of subsection (1) of this section shall not release him from the obligation, but
(b) if in the performance of their duty under the said subsection (1) the highway authority repair the public path, they may recover from the said person the necessary expenses of so doing:

Provided that the right of recovery conferred by paragraph (b) of this subsection shall not be exercisable unless, before repairing the path, the highway authority have given notice to the said person that the path is in need of repair, specifying a reasonable time within which he may repair the path, and the said person has failed to repair the path within that time.—[Mr. King.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. King: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
I am very conscious that this is apparently a lengthy and formidable Clause, and the Committee may therefore expect me to introduce it at some length.

In fact, I do not think it is so formidable as it appears. Those hon. Members who have followed the Bill through in Committee, and are familiar with the old Clauses 47 and 48 (1), will realise that this is not very much more than an improved drafting of those two Clauses. The first five or six lines will please the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) and the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) and one or two other hon. Members, who during the Committee stage, urged that further provision should be made on the question of the repairability of footpaths; particularly footpaths where there was presumed dedication. I think that the first six lines bring out the point well, and make clear that we have now made provision, as far as anyone would reasonably wish, that all paths are repairable by the inhabitants at large. That is the most important effect of the Clause now before the Committee.

Mr. Turton: Although this Clause is somewhat like the old Clause 47, I never thought that the old Clause was very clear or satisfactory. I think that everyone is in favour of the repair of footpaths being placed upon the inhabitants at large—because they use them and it is only right that they should repair them—without all the obscurity which at present surrounds that liability. It does appear however that we shall have a double liability; a liability on the inhabitants at large and another liability on the person liable under an Act or under an Enclosure Award or ratione tenurœ.
I personally intensely dislike subsection (3). It might be said that we do not wish to relieve someone of an existing liability and that we ought to have this Clause. But if we once decide to make public footpaths repairable by the inhabitants at large we must release the other person from the liability, otherwise we shall have a constant war at law between the highway authority and the person whom they claim is at present liable. That is my broad objection to the way in which this Clause is drafted.
The Parliamentary Secretary may say it was also in Clause 42. Many people did not like Clause 42. In my view this new draft is worse than Clause 42 because it does not clarify the position in


this respect as did Clause 42. Subsection (3, b) of the proposed new Clause states:
if in the performance of their duty under the said subsection (1) the highway authority repair the public path, they may recover from the said person the necessary expenses of so doing.
The "said person" is the person they deem to be liable for the repair of the footpath. That is very unfair on that person because it takes no regard to what is the extent of his present liability. I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary and his legal advisers will well know that there is no more complex part of the law of England than this question of highway law and the law regarding the repair of footpaths. I am sorry that there are no legal advisers present at this time to assist us.
I think I am right in saying, and with his legal knowledge the Parliamentary Secretary will correct me if I am wrong, that the present law is that the standard of repair of footpaths shall be the standard existing at the time of dedication. Therefore, if the dedication was in the old days when these footpaths were tracks across the country, we cannot ask the person liable for repair to make some horrid asphalt path in their place. The highway authority may well have to repair that path on quite a different standard, but as this Clause is drafted they could put the bill on the person liable for the whole extent of that cost. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will try to meet us on this point.
I am sure that every hon. Member will have had experience of many examples of long disputes in villages on this question of the liability of footpaths. Since I have represented my constituency I have had many such experiences with villages. I should be pleased if the whole of the correspondence could be removed from me, and that the highway authority could take it over. It is unfair to place on people of small means this very expensive liability which is imposed on them by the drafting of this Clause, especially by the words:
… the necessary expense of so doing.

Mr. King: I can only make it clear that no additional liability is placed on anyone by this Clause.

Mr. Turton: I am sorry there is no Law Officer of the Crown present this

afternoon. I should have thought that if we could not have had present the English Law Officer—in view of certain matters happening today—one of the Scottish Law Officers could have helped us. The Clause states:
… they may recover from the said person the necessary expenses of so doing.
I cannot see how the Parliamentary Secretary can glibly say that it does not give them the power to recover more than the existing liability. If he inserts wording that it shall be subject to that proviso I think it will be all right, but I hope he will get some legal declaration on this matter.

Mr. Baldwin: I wish to ask one question about the repair of stiles, and so on, which run across footpaths. After reading the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Standing Committee, I am not clear where the liability lies. I gather that if in the past the repair of the stiles has been the responsibility of the occupier or owner of the land, that liability remains. In circumstances where the authorities have to do the repair of stiles and gates, I wish to ask what is the position where a footpath leads from one farm to another. Under the regulations governing T.T. herds, it is necessary for a farmer to have a double fence between his land and that of his neighbour. If that is to be effective, there must be a double stile. If the existing stile is repairable by the highway authority, is it the liability of the authority to put up the double stile which is necessary if the farmer is to comply with the regulations? If the farmer is responsible for repairing the stile, and he puts up a double stile, will the inhabitants be able to remove the second stile on the ground that it is an obstruction?

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I wish to put a question which presents a little difficulty and which requires consideration. There may be a public right of passage on foot without a public right for the passage of vehicles. For instance, the owner of land on which there is a road leading to a mill may want to use that road for vehicles, and he may have to keep it in repair himself without being under any legal obligation to do so. In addition to that use by him for his vehicles, there may be a public right of passage on foot. In that sense, it is a public highway. This Clause puts the duty of repairing that public


highway on the local authority. Is the local authority to repair that route up to the standards of fitness for foot passengers, or is it to accept the obligation of making that road adequate for the carriage of vehicles? That is a position which is bound to arise in a number of cases where there is a public right of passage on foot, but no greater public right than that.
My second question is similar to that put by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). Cases may arise where there is an obligation on someone else to repair a public path, which is only an obligation to a limited extent—an obligation which is shared jointly by many occupiers under the Enclosure Acts. As I see the position, if the local authority acts under subsection (3), it could recover the total cost of repairing that highway from any one of the adjoining occupiers who under an Enclosure Act might be liable to contribute in some degree to the expense of the repair. It seems to me to be wrong that by virtue of this Clause the liability of someone else should be increased. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider that matter and try to meet the point by a drafting Amendment at a later stage.

7.15 p.m.

Sir G. Jeffreys: My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin) mentioned a footpath running across two farms on land which was fenced because of the presence of a T.T. herd. The problem he mentioned has already arisen in my constituency, and I should think that it has arisen elsewhere. It arose where there was a path on which there was a gate which it was necessary to maintain. As far as I know, it has never been held that the local authority was responsible for complying with any sort of regulations affecting T.T. herds. That may be right or wrong. It is the occupier who is responsible for complying with those regulations and, surely, it is the duty of the occupier to maintain an appropriate fence and the gates which may be part of it.
I should like to know more about the position in which a highway is repairable by the inhabitants at large—in other words, by the local authority. I believe that the Parliamentary Secretary has already said that that has always been

the law. Local authorities have always been liable to maintain any highway in their area. However, the question of what sort of maintenance they think is appropriate and necessary is a very different matter. I hope that under this Bill there will be no question of bringing pressure to bear on local authorities to metal long footpaths or rights of way leading across country which are very little used by the local people, for the benefit of possible visitors from London and elsewhere. Will any pressure be put on the local authority to maintain these highways at a much higher standard than the present one? I hope that we shall have an assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary that this Clause will not be used to interfere with the discretion of highway authorities in this matter.

Mr. King: This has been an interesting Debate and I appreciate the various points made by hon. Members. First, I will deal with the major point and, secondly, I will refer to the number of small legal subsidiary questions which, frankly, are difficult to answer straight away, and some of which I cannot attempt to answer. The major point was raised by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). There is a problem here, and it is not easy to solve it. We are left with laws of past centuries which provide that it is the duty of private persons to repair certain roads. To many of us that seems to be out of date and generally undesirable. Most of us would agree that the public interest would be better served if that kind of private obligation were removed. At the same time, we must face the fact that it cannot be any purpose of this Bill to remove from a landlord or the owner of a path any obligation—usually a financial obligation—attached to it.

Mr. Molson: I hope that the hon. Gentleman has given consideration to the recommendation on this very point in the Report of the Special Committee on Footpaths and Access to the Countryside. That Report said:
The surviving liabilities of individuals for the repair and maintenance of rights of way … are of little significance, and difficult to establish. The trouble of ascertaining the degree of liability and of supervising the work of maintenance is frequently more costly in time and money than prompt repair by the authority. We recommend, therefore, that they should no longer be enforceable.


It was understood that this Bill was to give effect to that recommendation.

Mr. King: I was well aware of that. We have studied the Report. It does not deal with the financial aspect.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: It does.

Mr. King: The solution we have adopted is that in future the highway authority should be responsible for maintaining the path or road. But if the highway authority can discover, and can prove, that some other private person was, and still is, responsible for the upkeep, then they can reclaim from that person the amount properly spent upon the road. As the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) pointed out, many of these obligations are so obtuse and obscure that it is questionable whether a local authority would find it worth while to try to claim at all. I have no doubt that, in some cases, they would drop to the ground, but, where a claim can be submitted and proved, that obligation is laid upon the highway authority to make that claim and recover, in the interests of the community as a whole, what they can recover.
That is the position under the new Clause, and I think it is reasonable, though I am bound to admit that in the Ministry we have had the gravest doubts about how best this can be arranged. I am quite sure that my right hon. Friend, who is not here at the moment, will read with great care the speeches made on this point, and it is quite possible, although this is not a promise, that if we can find a better way of dealing with the problem we shall be glad to do so. Beyond that, I do not think I ought to go.
There were a number of subsidiary points put to me, and may I deal first with that about T.T. herds? In so far as the hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield (Sir G. Jeffreys) was thinking of the creation of new paths—

Sir G. Jeffreys: No.

Mr. King: I think the main point is that it would not be policy to create new paths at all.

Sir G. Jeffreys: I never suggested, or thought of suggesting, the creation of new

paths, but there are to my certain knowledge existing paths and highways which run between farms where there are T.T. herds and where difficulties do occur.

Mr. King: I do not want the Committee to derive any kind of fear that we are going to interfere with anything which may affect T.T. herds. A highway authority assumes responsibility for maintaining the length of the way. Sometimes, it is not easy to discover whether the stiles mentioned are across the way or alongside it. In so far as they were across the way, it would be the duty of the highway authority to maintain the path, but they would not assume any responsibility for anything like gates, stiles or anything else which was not necessary to transit by passengers. Nor do we think that they are bound to do anything more in the way of maintaining the standard of the surface than the standard of surface at the time of dedication.

Mr. Baldwin: There is one point which the Parliamentary Secretary has not cleared up. Supposing it is the liability of the farmer to put up a double stile, have the public the right of pulling it up and throwing it away as an obstruction?

Mr. King: Has the hon. Gentleman in mind the stile going across the footpath or alongside the footpath? If the stile is already there as a right, it remains there; there is nothing in the Clause about anyone removing it, and anyone who tried to remove it would be a trespasser and liable to prosecution.

Mr. Turton: Is the hon. Gentleman going to reply to the speeches of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) and myself?

Mr. King: I have replied; I have nothing to add.

Mr. Turton: I heard nothing about expenses.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I think we must ask the hon. Gentleman to go further and deal with this serious point. In subsection (3) we may well have a heavier burden cast upon a person who is under an obligation to repair a public path than now exists. If the hon. Gentleman will say that it is his desire not to increase that burden by this new Clause, and that, if necessary, he will import words into it


to make that quite clear, it will satisfy my hon. Friend and myself on that point. The hon. Gentleman said nothing about that, nor did he say anything at all in answer to the point which I myself raised.

Mr. King: I am sorry if I did not grasp the hon. and learned Gentleman's first point. I think the result at which the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton has arrived was reached by omitting to read line 15, which reads:
(3) Where apart from this Section any person would be under an obligation to repair a public path"—
and, later, it goes on—
shall not release him from the obligation.
With the removal of that obligation, I admit that nothing further could be recovered from him than the expense which he would have incurred if he had done what he was in fact in law bound to do. That is the interpretation which I place upon the new Clause, but we are sometimes wrong, and it may be that I am wrong now. If I am wrong, I shall certainly take the point and be glad to look at it again, but that is our intention.

Mr. Turton: Will the hon. Gentleman refer the point to the Law Officers?

Mr. King: I do not think it is relevant to whom I refer it, so long as we get justice.

Colonel Clarke: I am afraid I am not clear or satisfied with the explanation of the Parliamentary Secretary regarding the liabilities of an owner who puts up a double fence across a footpath at the edge of his farm in order to comply with the regulations regarding an attested herd. Presumably, there was always one gate there, and that was all right, but if the owner puts up a second one, he may render himself liable for causing an obstruction; the public would have the right of uprooting it or getting rid of it, and he would have no power of getting compensation.
I can see the same thing happening in other cases of farms in open arable country, where a farmer, in full accordance with good husbandry, was going to put a ley down to grass, when it would be necessary to have a fence which did not exist before, as well as another gate. Would that farmer be liable to be accused of placing an obstruction across the path? It seems to me that the two cases are

very similar, though they are both cases not likely to arise today and have not arisen very often in the past, because there were no T.T. herds and the system of ley farming was not involved as it is today. I think this important point should be cleared up so that farmers may know where they stand in this matter.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time.

Mr. Molson: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed new Clause, in subsection (3), to leave out "whether."
This Amendment, and the following Amendment, in line 16, to leave out
or by reason of tenure, enclosure, prescription or otherwise
are concerned with the same point. The purpose and intended effect of the two Amendments is that subsection (3) would then read:
(3) Where apart from this section any person would be under an obligation to repair a public footpath, under any enactment"—
the provisions of (a) and (b) would apply, and the liability would rest upon him. I have listened with close attention to the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, in which he has explained why this new Clause has been moved. It is in partial fulfilment of what I regard as the undertaking given by the Minister during the Second Reading of this Bill, when he said:
The Bill provides, for the first time, for a liability for the maintenance of footpaths. This will now rest fairly and squarely on highway authorities."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st March, 1949; Vol. 463, c. 1478.]
7.30 p.m.
The House understood from the Minister's statement, and from part of the original Clause in the Bill, that it was the intention of the Government to give effect to the very important recommendations of the Special Committee on Footpaths and Access to the Countryside, presided over by Sir Arthur Hobhouse. The Parliamentary Secretary says that he has given careful attention to Chapter IV. The Committee pointed out, what was already known to lawyers and those concerned with legal administration, that there is no branch of the English law which is more difficult and obscure than the law relating to footpaths and rights of way and the obligation that rests either upon certain individuals or upon local


authorities to repair these footpaths and keep up these rights of way.
The kind of difficulty which arises is largely caused by the Highways Act of 1835, Section 23 of which provides that no road or occupation way dedicated or created after 20th March, 1835, shall be deemed to be repairable by the highway authority unless the individual or body dedicating gave notice to the authority and complied with certain conditions. Naturally, and I have had personal experience of this, when the liability for the upkeep of a footpath depends on whether the dedication had taken place before 20th March, 1835, it is a matter that involves a very great deal of research; it is extremely difficult to bring home a liability of that kind. After dealing with the matter at some length, the Committee pointed out that when highways are created by Statute, it is possible for an obligation to maintain them to be laid upon private individuals who benefit by their creation. They then go on to give three different ways, none of which, they say, is of much practical importance, in which individuals may be held responsible to maintain these rights of ways ratione tenurae, ratione clausurae and ratione documenti.
They go on to point out—and I will venture to read some of this again, because it is extremely relevant, not only to the Amendment but to the reconsideration which the Parliamentary Secretary has undertaken to give to this Clause, reconsideration without commitment or obligation, as I fully realise—that the present state of the law is unsatisfactory, not only because of the fact that the obligations depend upon what was the state of facts in March, 1835, but because different local authorities interpret their obligations under that Act in different ways. They then go on to say, in effect, that we should take this opportunity to clear away this whole jungle of decided cases and the many problems which are still undecided, and put the financial and legal responsibility fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the local authorities in the way that the Minister thought he was doing when he introduced this Bill on Second Reading, when he certainly said that it was being done.
I was very much surprised at what I understood to be the interpretation the

Parliamentary Secretary put a few moments ago upon paragraph 68 of this Report. I will read it again.
The surviving liabilities of individuals for the repair and maintenance of rights of way … are of little significance, and difficult to establish, The trouble of ascertaining the degree of liability and of supervising the work of maintenance is frequently more costly in time and money than prompt repair by the authority. We recommend, therefore, that they should no longer be enforceable.
If I understood the Parliamentary Secretary aright, he understood that as meaning that the financial liability should continue as it is at the present time, and that all that the local authority would undertake would be the actual carrying out of the repairs to the footpaths. I am bound to say that I do not think the word "enforceable" can possibly bear that meaning. It does I think mean, in view of the comparatively small expenditure involved, that the whole of this unprofitable learning, dating back to the earliest times, should be swept away and that the highway authorities should fairly and squarely undertake liability for it.
I now come to the Amendment which I have moved. The Parliamentary Secretary may say that it is not a very logical one, but it is genuinely intended to meet the point which the Minister made during the Committee stage when this matter was under discussion. He said that he had a good deal of sympathy with the recommendations on this point in the Hobhouse Report, but went on to say that he felt a good deal of hesitation in undertaking a liability for the ratepayers which at present rested upon private individuals.
In the new Clause, the financial obligation is preserved in any case where under any enactment, or by reason of tenure, enclosure prescription, or otherwise, there is any financial liability. When we begin to ascertain whether there is a liability under prescription or otherwise we are apt to get involved in the most difficult points of law, and in even more difficulty in ascertainment of fact, because it has to go back so very far. Therefore, we are moving this Amendment in order to do away with obligations that can only be proved with very great difficulty.
The reason that we are leaving in "any enactment" is that if there is any private Act of Parliament which, for


example, authorises an enclosure, where the obligation is printed and can be pointed to and where no great difficulty or cost is involved in proving that liability, then there we would propose that that liability should continue. It is in order to clarify this position, to do away with all this uncertainty, and to avoid long and costly litigation, often, in the words of the Committee, far more costly than actually getting the job carried out, that I move this Amendment.

Mr. King: I should like to reply as adequately as I can to the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson), but I did to some extent put the case for this Clause before he moved this Amendment, so that there is no need to go through the whole of that argument again. The intention of this Amendment is to abolish any existing liability upon landowners to repair public paths by reason of tenure, enclosure, or prescription—

Mr. Molson: Or otherwise.

Mr. King: Yes. The hon. Member quoted my right hon. Friend's statement that liability for repair rests fairly and squarely upon local authorities, and seemed rather to imply that that would not be properly carried out. But we must distinguish between financial and practical responsibility. The attitude we have adopted is that there should be no question at all of practical responsibility for repair resting on highway authorities. That is a great advance in itself. We are now left solely with the question of finance. I am conscious of what the Hobhouse Report said, and the value it is to us in this sort of argument, but I did not mean to imply, nor do I mean to do so now, that we should necessarily accept what that report has said, although it is, of course, a guide.
The argument, used partly by the hon. Member opposite and partly by the Hob-house Report, was that it is frequently

costly to collect small sums of money. That is true, and where it is so difficult as not to be worth while I have no doubt that that will not be done. The highway authority will soon get tired of becoming involved in ancient legal disputes, and many of these obligations will cease to have effect. We must, however, bear in mind that there may be cases where there is no difficulty of proof. That being so, I cannot see why it should be argued that we should not take normal steps where proof does not exist. One of the troubles in this matter is that it is very difficult to get sufficient information of the number of cases in which this problem will arise and how many of the powers, which are now in dispute, will apply. I would not claim that we have all the information we would like on that subject, but we are arguing about something which is very small. I put the major theoretical argument earlier, and I must now ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.

Mr. Peake: We are by no means satisfied with the hon. Gentleman's reply. It is true that the Clause is better than Clause 47 which was originally in the Bill, and that it will remove some of the difficulties surrounding the repair of public paths; but the words we propose to leave out by the Amendment will lead to great difficulties and research in order that local authorities may try to recover very small sums from persons whom they allege to be under legal liability. We think that that liability should be limited to the clear case of where it is imposed by the Department, and for that reason we propose to divide the Committee on the Amendment.

Question put, "That 'whether' stand part of the proposed Clause."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 260; Noes. 97.

Division No. 215.]
AYES
[7.45 p.m.


Adams, Richard (Balham)
Baird, J.
Blyton, W. R.


Albu, A. H.
Balfour, A.
Boardman, H.


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Barstow, P. G.
Bowden, Flg. Offr H. W.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Barton, C.
Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'pl. Exch'ge)


Alpass, J. H.
Battley, J. R.
Brook, D. (Halifax)


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Bechervaise, A. E.
Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)


Attewell, H. C.
Benson, G.
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.


Austin, H. Lewis
Berry, H.
Brown, T. J. (Ince)


Awbery, S. S.
Beswick, F.
Burke, W. A.


Ayles, W. H.
Bing, G. H. C.
Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.
Binns, J.
Callaghan, James


Bacon, Miss A.
Blenkinsop, A.
Carmichael, James




Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Reid, T. (Swindon)


Chetwynd, G. R.
Jeger, G. (Winchester)
Rhodes, H.


Cluse, W. S.
John, W.
Ridealgh, Mrs. M.


Coldrick, W.
Johnston, Douglas
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)


Collindridge, F.
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)
Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)


Collins, V. J.
Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)


Colman, Miss G. M.
Keenan, W.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Cooper, G.
Kenyon, C.
Ross, William (Kilmarnock)


Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N. W.)
King, E. M.
Royle, C.


Corlett, Dr. J.
Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E.
Sargood, R.


Cove, W. G.
Kinley, J.
Scollan, T.


Cullen, Mrs.
Kirby, B. V.
Segal, Dr. S.


Daggar, G.
Lavers, S.
Sharp, Granville


Daines, P.
Lee, F. (Hulme)
Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Leonard, W.
Shurmer, P.


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)
Silkin, Rt. Hon. L.


Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S. W.)
Lewis, T. (Southampton)
Silverman, J. (Erdington)


Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Lindgren, G. S.
Simmons, C. J.


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Lipson, D. L.
Skeffington, A. M.


Deer, G.
Lipton, Lt.-Col M.
Skeffington-Lodge, T. C.


Delargy, H. J.
Longden, F.
Skinnard, F. W.


Diamond, J.
Lyne, A. W.
Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)


Dobbie, W.
McAdam, W.
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S. W.)


Dodds, N. N.
McAllister, G.
Snow, J. W.


Donovan, T.
McEntee, V. La T.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Driberg, T. E. N.
McGhee, H. G.
Sparks, J. A.


Dumpleton, C. W.
McKay, J. (Wallsend)
Steele, T.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
McKinlay, A. S.
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)
McLeavy, F.
Stubbs, A. E.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. N. (Caerphilly)
MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)
Swingler, S.


Evans, Albert (Islington, W.)
McNeil, Rt. Hon. H.
Sylvester, G. O.


Evans, E. (Lowestoft)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Symonds, A. L.


Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)
Macpherson, T. (Romford)
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)


Fairhurst, F.
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Fernyhough, E.
Mann, Mrs. J.
Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)


Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)
Manning, C. (Camberwell, N.)
Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)


Follick, M.
Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Forman, J. C.
Mathers, Rt. Hon. George
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)


Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
Mellish, R. J.
Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)


Gallacher, W.
Messer, F.
Timmons, J.


Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
Middleton, Mrs. L.
Titterington, M. F.


George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)
Mikardo, Ian.
Tolley, L.


Gibbins, J.
Mitchison, G. R.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.


Gibson, C. W.
Monslow, W.
Turner-Samuels, M.


Gilzean, A.
Moody, A. S.
Ungoed-Thomas, L.


Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Morley, R.
Viant, S. P.


Goodrich, H. E.
Morris, Lt.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)
Walkden, E.


Gordon-Walker, P. C.
Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)
Walker, G. H.


Greenwood, A. W. J. (Heywood)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)


Grenfell, D. R.
Moyle, A.
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)


Grey, C. F.
Nally, W.
Warbey, W. N.


Grierson, E.
Neal, H. (Claycross)
Watkins, T. E.


Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J. (Derby)
Watson, W. M.


Griffiths, W. D. (Moss Side)
Noel-Buxton, Lady
Walls, P. L. (Faversham)


Guest, Dr. L. Haden
O'Brien, T.
Wells, W. T. (Walsall)


Guy, W. H.
Oliver, G. H.
West, D. G.


Haire, John E. (Wycombe)
Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John (Edinb'gh, E.)


Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
White, H. (Derbyshire, N. E.)


Hannan, W. (Maryhill)
Palmer, A. M. F.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Hardy, E. A.
Pargiter, G. A.
Wigg, George


Harrison, J.
Parker, J.
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Parkin, B. T.
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Haworth, J.
Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Kingswinford)
Paton, J. (Norwich)
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Herbison, Miss M.
Pearson, A.
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Holman, P.
Peart, T. F.
Willis, E.


Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)
Platts-Mills, J. F. F.
Wills, Mrs. E. A.


Houghton, A. L. N. D.
Poole, Cecil (Lichfield)
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Hoy, J.
Popplewell, E.
Woods, G. S.


Hubbard, T.
Porter, E. (Warrington)
Wyatt, W.


Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)
Price, M. Philips
Yates, V. F.


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayr)
Proctor, W. T.
Younger, Hon. Kenneth


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Pryde, D. J.
Zilliacus, K.


Hughes, H. D. (W'lverh'ton, W.)
Randall, H. E.



Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Ranger, J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Irving, W. J. (Tottenham, N.)
Rankin, J.
Mr. Joseph Henderson and




Mr. Wilkins.




NOES


Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.
Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C. (Wells)
Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.


Baldwin, A. E.
Boothby, R.
Challen, C.


Barlow, Sir J.
Bower, N.
Clarke, Col. R. S.


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.
Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Conant, Maj. R. J. E.


Bennett, Sir P.
Braithwaite, Lt.-Comdr. J. G.
Cooper-Key, E. M.







Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U. (Ludlow)
Jeffreys, General Sir G.
Renton, D.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Lambert, Hon. G.
Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)


Crowder, Capt. John E.
Langford-Holt, J.
Ropner, Col. L.


Darling, Sir W. Y.
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Savory, Prof. D. L.


Digby, Simon Wingfield
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Scott, Lord W.


Donner, P. W.
Low, A. R. W.
Shephard, S. (Newark)


Drayson, G. B.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W.


Drewe, C.
McFarlane, C. S.
Spearman, A. C. M.


Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)
Maclay, Hon. J. S.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. O.


Eccles, D. M.
Maclean, F. H. R. (Lancaster)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Eden, Rt. Hon. A.
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold (Bromley)
Strauss, Henry (English Universities)


Foster, J. G. (Northwich)
Maitland, Comdr. J. W.
Sutcliffe, H.


Fox, Sir G.
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.


Fraser, H. C. P. (Stone)
Marples, A. E.
Thorp, Brigadier R. A. F.


Fraser, Sir I. (Lonsdale)
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
Turton, R. H.


Gage, C.
Mellor, Sir J.
Wakefield, Sir W. W.


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
Molson, A. H. E.
Walker-Smith, D.


Gates, Maj. E. E.
Morris, Hopkin (Carmarthen)
Ward, Hon. G. R.


Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.
Morris-Jones, Sir H.
Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie


Gridley, Sir A.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
White, Sir D. (Fareham)


Harris, F. W. (Croydon, N.)
Nicholson, G.
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Haughton, S. G.
Odey, G. W.
York, C.


Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H.
Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


Hogg, Hon. Q.
Peaks, Rt. Hon. O.



Hollis, M. C.
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hope, Lord J.
Ponsonby, Col. C. E.
Brigadier Mackeson and


Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)
Raikes, H. V.
Colonel Wheatley.


Hurd, A.
Rayner, Brig. R.



Question put, and agreed to.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed new Clause, at the end, to add:
(4) For the purposes of this section and section forty-eight of this Act, it shall be the duty of the highway authority in relation to every public path over which a right of way exists to secure the removal of obstructions.
This Amendment has been put down mainly for the avoidance of doubt. It is quite clear that the Footpaths Committee recommended that a general duty should be laid upon the highway authority to remove obstructions from rights of way. It is also quite clear from the Minister's speech on Second Reading that he intends that the maintenance of footpaths shall include the removal of obstructions, but there is still, apparently, considerable legal doubt whether the wording of this new Clause as drafted does, in fact, provide for the removal of obstructions as well as for the duty of repairs.
In the past repair and the removal of obstructions have been dealt with legally as separate issues, and in the standard works on the subject repair and the removal of obstructions are dealt with quite separately. The only duty which this new Clause lays on the highway authority is that of the repair of public paths, but it in no way makes it crystal clear that the repair of public paths also includes the removal of obstructions. As I say, this Amendment seeks to get rid of doubt and to make it quite clear that the duty of the highway authority to repair public paths should also cover the

removal of obstructions, and that that duty lies on the highway authority and not on any subordinate authority.
We are thinking, primarily, of two types of obstruction; first, the tree which falls across a path and blocks it, and, secondly, locked gates and fences which are deliberately put across paths. We seek an assurance from the Minister that the Bill as drafted specifically lays upon the highway authority the duty to deal with both these types of obstruction.

Mr. King: I ask my hon. Friend to believe that there is nothing between us in our ambitions on this subject; we are equally anxious that there should be no obstruction of rights of way. It is really a legal point as to what the existing law now is. I can do no more than give him a categorical assurance that there is no doubt under the existing highway law that it is the duty of the highway authority to maintain all highways, for the repair of which they are responsible, so as to allow the public to exercise their rights over them in all states of weather. That must include the removal of obstructions, and because we believe that is the state of the existing law we do not think it would be right to accept the Amendment. We think that the point is already covered, and that it would not necessarily make the law clearer by duplicating it. Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend to accept the assurance I have given, and allow us to pass on.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: In view of my hon. Friend's assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(PRIVATE STREET WORKS.)

Where apart from the provisions of section (Liability for repair of public paths) of this Act a public path in existence at the passing of this Act would, for the purposes of any of the following enactments, that is to say—

(a) section one hundred and fifty of the Public Health Act, 1875, or
(b) the Private Street Works Act, 1892, or
(c) the corresponding provisions of any other Act (including a local Act),

be a street, or part of a street, not being a highway repairable by the inhabitants at large, nothing in the said section of this Act shall prevent a local authority carrying out, or requiring the carrying out of, work under any of the said enactments or recovering expenses thereof.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This Clause is designed to clear up a doubt in the law. It relates to cases where there is a certain amount of development along an existing path and where the owners of property along that path are at present liable for its maintenance. This Clause seeks to ensure that they are not now relieved of their liability.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(FERRIES FOR PURPOSES OF LONG-DISTANCE ROUTES.)

(1) Where approved proposals for a long-distance route include proposals for the provision and operation of a ferry, the authority who are the highway authority for either or both of the highways to be connected by the ferry—

(a) shall have power to provide and operate the ferry and to carry out such work and do all such things as appear to them expedient for the purpose of operating the ferry;
(b) may with the approval of the Minister agree with any person or body of persons for the provision and operation of the ferry by him or them and for the making by the highway authority of such contributions as may be specified in the agreement:

Provided that nothing in this subsection shall—


(i) be construed as conferring on such an authority any exclusive right to operate a ferry;
(ii) authorise the doing of anything which apart from this subsection would be actionable by any person by virtue of his having an exclusive right to operate a ferry, unless he consents to the doing thereof;
(iii) authorise the doing of anything on land, or as respects water over land, in which any other person has an interest, if apart from this subsection the doing thereof would be actionable at his suit by virtue of that interest and he does not consent to the doing thereof;

and before carrying out any work in the exercise of powers conferred by this subsection, being work on the bank or bed of any waterway, the highway authority shall consult with such authorities having functions relating to the waterway as the Minister may either generally or in any particular case direct.

(2) A highway authority may acquire land compulsorily for the purpose of any of their functions under paragraph (a) of the last foregoing subsection.

(3) The Minister, on the application of any such authority as is hereafter specified, may direct, either generally or as respects the provision and operation of a particular ferry, that all or any of the powers conferred on a highway authority by subsection (1) of this section shall be exercisable by the applicant authority and not by the highway authority.

(4) An application under the last foregoing subsection may be made, in relation to any highway authority by any county or county district council (not being the highway authority) whose area includes or is included in the area of the highway authority.

(5) The Minister may give directions to an authority to take such steps for exercising any of their functions under subsection (1) of this section (including functions exercisable by virtue of a direction under subsection (3) of this section) as may be specified in the directions; and any such directions shall be enforceable on the application of the Minister, by mandamus.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The subject matter of this new Clause has already been referred to in the course of earlier Amendments. This rather long Clause gives local authorities power to run ferries where necessary in connection with a long-distance route, and it provides all the incidental powers that may arise from the running of the ferries. There is nothing unusual or abnormal about the powers contained in the Clause, and I commend it to the Committee.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

8.0 p.m.

New Clause.—(ACCOMMODATION, MEALS AND REFRESHMENTS ALONG LONG- DISTANCE ROUTES.)

(1) Where approved proposals relating to a long-distance route include proposals for the provision, along any part of the route, of accommodation, meals and refreshments, it shall be the duty of local planning authorities through whose area, or in the neighbourhood of whose area, that part of the route passes to make such arrangements under this section as are requisite for giving effect to the last-mentioned proposals

(2) The arrangements to be made by an authority under this section shall be arrangements for securing, at places in their area convenient for persons using the part of the route in question, the provision, whether by the authority or other persons, of accommodation, meals and refreshments (including, if the authority think fit, intoxicating liquor).

(3) For the purposes of arrangements under this section a local planning authority may erect such buildings and carry out such work as may appear to them to be necessary or expedient.

(4) The foregoing provisions of this section shall not authorise or require an authority, on land in which any other person has an interest, without his consent to do anything which apart from this section would be actionable at his suit by virtue of that interest.

(5) A local planning authority may acquire land compulsorily for the purpose of any of their functions under this section.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The Committee will appreciate that it is not much use providing long-distance routes of the character which has been referred to, running many miles, unless there is some provision made for accommodation, meals and refreshments, and the intention is that local planning authorities shall have the same powers of providing these facilities along long-distance routes as they are provided with in the Bill in connection with national parks.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(VARIATION OF APPROVED PROPOSALS.)

(1) Where proposals relating to a long-distance route have been approved by the Minister under section fifty of this Act, the Commission may from time to time prepare and submit to the Minister a report proposing any such variation of the approved proposals as the Commission may think fit.

(2) Where, as respects any proposals approved as aforesaid, it appears to the Minister, after consultation with the Commission, expedient that the proposals should be varied in any respect and the Commission have not submitted to the Minister a report proposing that variation, the Minister may direct that the proposals shall be so varied.

(3) Subsection (4) of section forty-nine of this Act and subsections (1) and (2) of section fifty thereof, shall with the necessary modifications apply to a report or direction under this section; and subsection (5) of the said section forty-nine shall with the necessary modifications apply to any such report.

(4) Where the Minister approves, with or without modifications, any proposals contained in a report under subsection (1) of this section, or gives a direction under subsection (2) of this section, the proposals for the variation of which the report was made or direction given shall thereafter have effect subject to the provisions of the report or direction; and references in this Act to approved proposals relating to a long-distance route shall be construed accordingly.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This is very largely a matter of drafting. It enables the Commission, who will be responsible for putting forward proposals for long-distance routes, to make variations in the routes if it should turn out to be necessary at any time.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(PENALTY FOR DISPLAYING ON FOOTPATHS NOTICES DETERRING PUBLIC USE.)

(1) If any person places or maintains, on or near any way shown on a definitive map, or on a revised map prepared in definitive form, as a public path or road used as a public path, a notice containing any false or misleading statement likely to deter the public from using the way, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five pounds.

(2) The court before whom a person is convicted of an offence under the last foregoing subsection may, in addition to or in substitution for the imposition of a fine, order him to remove the notice in respect of which he is convicted within such period not being less than four days as may be specified in the order; and if he fails to comply with the order he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding two pounds for each day on which the failure continues.

(3) It shall be the duty of a highway authority to enforce the provisions of this section as respects any public path, or road used as a public path, for which they are the highway authority; and no proceedings in respect of an offence under these provisions


shall be brought except by the authority, required by this subsection to enforce these provisions as respects the path or road in question.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
It was represented in the course of the Committee stage that there is a danger of owners of land putting up notices which are false or misleading. It has been represented that there is a danger of certain persons putting up notices on access land or on land which is the subject of a right of way for the purpose of misleading the public into believing either that it is dangerous to go on to that land or that, in fact, there is no right of way. The favourite example is "Beware of the bull" when, in fact, there is no bull at all and no right to have a bull on the land. This Clause is designed to provide for penalties against any person who puts up
a notice containing any false or misleading statement.…
It provides not only for a penalty and for a continuing penalty, but it also permits the highway authority to take steps to remove the notice.

Clause read a Second time.

Mr. H. Strauss: I beg to move, in subsection (1), to leave out "or misleading." I wonder whether it would be convenient if we discussed, with this Amendment, the following Amendment, in subsection (1) to leave out "likely," and to insert "designed." They are on a similar point and I think it would be for the general convenience of the Committee if we discussed them together.

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Bowles): Very well.

Mr. Strauss: I am not objecting, nor do my right hon. and hon. Friends object, as the Minister will have observed, to the general lines of this Clause. Nevertheless, when we are adding to the criminal law we must take considerable care that, in fact, we are not being unfair or enacting anything vague so as to make a person liable to a criminal penalty when nothing criminal is intended. Curiously enough, when the right hon. Gentleman was summarising his Clause, he used words that would have been unexceptionable, had

they been contained in the Clause. I think he said something like this—and I am quoting from memory: "putting up some false statement for the purpose of deterring." If there were anything like that in the Clause, I should not object to it.
My Amendments are designed to make it quite clear that the person who is to be guilty of the mischief aimed at under this Clause will, in fact have a guilty intention, and they are also designed to produce definiteness instead of vagueness in two respects. A false statement is comparatively an easy matter to ascertain by any court which inquires into it or by anybody who is responsible for it. "Misleading" is very much vaguer, and I think it is dangerously vague. "Likely to deter" is, I think, again something which does not involve anything whatsoever in the way of motive. If my two Amendments were adopted, the words would read:
Containing any false statement designed to deter.
I think that would give the right hon. Gentleman a remedy against the mischievous type of thing which he wishes to hit, without endangering, in any way, any innocent man.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: At first sight I was somewhat surprised at the fact that the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) had put down this Amendment and was fighting the last ditch on behalf of misleading notice boards, but on second thoughts it appeared to me that there was method in his madness, because in a certain part of my constituency there is a very large notice displayed at the side of a public right of way which says something like this:
The Tories fought for and will keep the social services.
I am not quite clear, Mr. Bowles, whether that is the kind of misleading notice to which these Amendments refer. In fact, I am not at all sure whether it comes under the heading of a misleading notice or that of a false notice, but certainly it is one or the other.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: It is both—both false and misleading.

Mr. Hughes: It is also likely to deter the public from using that path. Certainly the effect on me is that, whenever


possible, I go round by another way in order to avoid my sense of reason and justice being outraged by having to pass this notice board. I have no doubt that quite a number of my constituents do the same. The hon. Member's motive in putting down this Amendment is, therefore, quite clear. I am only surprised that he did not delete the word "false" as well.
Leaving that point and turning to the immediate reference of this Amendment in the Bill, I very much hope that the Minister will resist it because obviously there are a large number of notices which, while not being strictly false, would be likely to deter innocent ramblers from the use of the right of way—a notice like "private land," for example, placed near a footpath. That is not a false notice, for it would be placed on private land, but if it were placed in juxtaposition to a footpath it would be likely to deter a person innocent of the law from making use of that right of way.

Mr. H. Strauss: Would it be misleading if it were, in fact, true?

Mr. Hughes: It would be misleading; that is precisely the point I am making. It would not be false but it would be misleading if it were placed in juxtaposition to a public right of way; it would be likely to intimidate a person innocent of the law and prevent him from using the footpath. There is the good old diehard, "Beware of the bull," where no bull, in fact, exists. "Beware of the bull" is not a false statement; it does not say that there is a bull there, but it does mislead people into thinking that if they go on to the land they are likely to encounter a large quadruped. Therefore, the effect of these Amendments would be greatly to reduce the value of the new Clause.

Mr. H. Strauss: I should like to hear the Minister on this. The hon. Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes) has indulged in some witticisms, and at this stage I certainly do not resent that: it enlivened the proceedings of this Committee. However, when we are creating a new criminal offence, I think it is very important—and I have some confidence that the Government will agree with me in this—to see that we give the ordinary protection to people

who may fall within the mischief of the new law. My objection to the word "misleading" is that it is far too vague. It is quite dangerously vague when we are creating a criminal offence. Here I shall not be quarrelling with the argument of either the Minister or of the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton, because they both wish to hit those who put up something designed to deter.
"Designed" imports that degree of guilty intention which is a general requirement of the criminal law, and a desirable requirement of the criminal law. I do not want, with so much work ahead of the Committee, to delay the Committee, but I would warn the Committee of the great dangers of creating criminal offences without observing certain well-known rules that have been recognised as desirable and that must be satisfied, if a criminal offence is to be created without doing a great deal of harm.
I believe that my two Amendments taken together will greatly improve the Clause, but, if the right hon. Gentleman says that he can think of some better words, no pride will prevent me from considering them in a proper way. I believe that the creation of these very serious penalties, coupled with an extremely vague definition of the offence, is making such an addition to the criminal law as is contrary to all the principles that should rightly be observed.

Mr. Silkin: I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman that one must be extremely careful in introducing new offences into the law. We want to be quite certain, first, that there is a mischief which it is necessary to deal with, and, secondly, that the remedy is clear, and that an offender knows quite definitely with what he is going to be charged. I submit that both of these conditions are met in the Clause as drawn. There is definitely a mischief with which we want to deal. I think that the Amendments would deal with only a part of the mischief, and not with the whole of it. It is true that it would deal with people who make false statements knowing them to be false. It would not deal with another kind of mischief which is equally serious from the point of view of the persons who are going to use these new facilities. Therefore, my objection


to the Amendment is that it deals only with a part of the evil.
I do not think that the Clause is vague at all. To make a false statement is one thing. To make a misleading statement is a perfectly definite thing. After all, it is a question of fact, which has to be settled in some court, whether a statement is misleading or otherwise. Let me give the hon. and learned Gentleman an example of a misleading statement which may, in fact, be true. Such a statement would be to say that a particular path led, for the sake of the argument, to Horsham, whereas, in fact, it went the other way: of course one should get to Horsham eventually, as one could from any spot in the British Isles, by walking long enough. That would be a misleading statement.

Mr. H. Strauss: And clearly a false one.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Silkin: I do not know. In an extreme case it would be false, but in a less extreme case it would be a misleading statement; but it is not sufficient to invoke the criminal law. It has not only to be a misleading statement; it has to be a misleading statement of a particular kind—"likely to deter the public." If it is "designed to deter the public" one has to establish in each case what is in the mind of the person who puts up the notice. If it is "likely" to do so, it is a question of judgment whether a certain notice will probably have a certain effect or not. To have to prove affirmatively what is the purpose of a notice is going to be an extremely difficult thing, though one may make a pretty good guess.
I think it is necessary to have "false" and "misleading" and "likely to deter" rather than "designed to deter." I say quite frankly that I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman will not die in the last ditch about it. Nor would I, really, if I could find something equally satisfactory to deal with both kinds of mischief that would meet the hon. and learned Gentleman's wishes. I am quite prepared to think about it again and to see whether I can do something better, but I do not want to whittle this down. I want to make that quite clear. It is because I think that the effect of the hon.

and learned Gentleman's Amendment—though not deliberately the effect—is likely to whittle down the Clause, even if it is not designed to whittle it down, that I cannot accept it.

Mr. H. Strauss: I should like to put one or two points to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not think that there is very much between us in what we wish to achieve, and I hope it is common to both sides of the Committee that we want justice. I do not pretend to have looked up all the precedents on this subject, but I should be surprised if the right hon. Gentleman will find a precedent for "misleading" used quite so vaguely as "misleading" is used here, to make a serious criminal offence of this kind. As regards "designed," of course, there is a purpose, and purpose has to be proved. But purpose has to be proved, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows, with the very great assistance of the criminal law of England with its famous presumption that men are presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of their actions.
Of course, if the notice were such that it would almost certainly deceive and deter the court would have no difficulty whatever in deciding that it was designed to deter. Let me give an example that has been put to me. What I am anxious to prevent—and what, I think, hon. Gentlemen opposite will also be anxious to prevent—is frightening people from putting up innocent and possibly even desirable notices. There is one that happens to have been brought to my attention, and I give it as an example to the right hon. Gentleman, because I know he wishes to think further about this. That notice said that land near a footpath was private land and that certain flowers had been planted on it, and it, therefore, called for care. It is quite obvious under my form of words that a notice of that sort would be completely innocent, but under the form of words at present in this subsection it would be impossible to say that it might not mislead or deter some fool from thinking that he could use the footpath. Those are the reasons why I beg the right hon. Gentleman to consider these words again. As I say, my two Amendments may not be perfect, though I believe that their adoption would greatly improve the proposed new Clause; but that the Clause is


defective as it stands I have no doubt at all.

Mr. Peake: We are probably all at one in the object which we desire to achieve, but whilst the right hon. Gentleman has made out, not a strong case, but a case, for keeping the word "misleading" in his proposed new Clause, I am not at all satisfied that the words "likely to deter the public" are any better, and I believe them to be very much worse, than the wording proposed by my hon. and learned Friend—"designed to deter the public." My hon. and learned Friend's words do carry with them at any rate the guilty intent which is fundamental to any conviction in our criminal courts. Moreover, the words "likely to deter the public" would, in my opinion, be almost impossible to construe. If one puts up a notice "Beware of the bull" it may deter many people, but it may not deter others. Some people are frightened of crossing a field in which there are cows, and a notice saying "Beware of the cows" might deter some members of the public from crossing the field. I am quite sure that the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) is no more frightened of bulls than she is of Ministers, and she as a member of the public would not be deterred by such a notice.
Let us consider another example. On many of our open spaces and commons there are small poisonous adders. Whether or not a member of the public will be deterred from using a footpath beside which there is a notice saying "Beware of the snakes" depends entirely upon what sort of footwear that person happens to have on at the moment. Therefore, I do say that it will be extremely difficult for people to do justice to the public, on the one hand, by putting up notices warning of possible dangers, and, on the other of steering clear of the provisions of this proposed new Clause which makes it an offence to put up anything which is likely to deter the public from using a footpath. I ask the right hon. Gentleman at any rate to look at the second Amendment again before this Bill finally becomes law.

Mr. Silkin: I am quite willing to accept that suggestion, and I will look at the second Amendment again.

Mr. Sargood: I should like to draw the Minister's

attention to the objection that is raised to the use of the word "likely." The hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) seemed to object very strongly to the use of that word, yet we find that in other forms of charges the courts have found no difficulty in determining what is "likely." Very often people have been charged with "conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace," and the courts have found no difficulty in those cases. I see no reason why they should have any difficulty here in determining what is likely to deter people from using footpaths.

Mr. H. Strauss: While, with every respect for my right hon. Friend, I think it is the combination of "likely" and "misleading" which is most objectionable, I will accept the Minister's undertaking to look at the whole of this again to see if he cannot improve the wording of this new Clause, because I do not think there is much between us in intention. Having regard to his undertaking, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(EXERCISE OF POWERS UNDER SECTION 13 AS RESPECTS OPEN COUNTRY AND WATERWAYS COMPRISED IN ACCESS ORDERS.)

(1) An access order, whether made in respect of open country or in respect of a waterway, may specify work to be carried out (either at one time or from time to time) on land comprised in the order in the exercise of the powers conferred by section thirteen of this Act.

(2) An authority proposing, in the exercise of the said powers, to carry out any work on land comprised in an access order, whether the work is specified in the order or not, shall give to the owner and occupier of the land not less than fourteen days' notice of their intention so to do, specifying the work to be carried out.

(3) Where the work specified in a notice given under the last foregoing subsection is not work specified in the access order, then if before the expiration of the notice the owner or occupier of the land serves notice of objection on the authority, the authority shall not carry out the work except in accordance with the provisions of the two next following subsections.

(4) An authority on whom notice of objection has been served under the last foregoing subsection shall afford to the objector an opportunity of being heard by a person appointed by them for the purpose and shall then determine either—

(a) not to carry out the work to which the objection relates, or


(b) to carry out the work, either as originally proposed or with such modifications as the authority may determine,

and shall serve notice of their determination on the objector; and where the authority determine as mentioned in paragraph (b) of this subsection, they may proceed with the work in accordance with the determination at any time after the expiration of fourteen days from the date on which notice of the determination is served on the objector:
Provided that if the objector serves notice of appeal under the next following subsection the authority shall not proceed with the work except in accordance with the provisions of that subsection.

(5) Any person aggrieved by a determination of an authority under the last foregoing subsection may within the period of fourteen days therein mentioned serve notice of appeal against the determination on the Minister and on the authority; and where notice of appeal is served under this subsection the Minister, after affording to the appellant and to the authority an opportunity of being heard by a person appointed by him for the purpose, shall either direct that the authority shall be at liberty to carry out the work (whether as specified in the notice given under subsection (2) of this section or subject to such modifications or conditions as the Minister may think fit) or shall direct the authority not to carry out the work.

(6) Any power conferred by paragraph (b) of subsection (4) of this section or by the last foregoing subsection to modify the work specified in a notice given under subsection (2) of this section shall not be exercised so as to affect land not affected by the notice.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The purpose of this new Clause is to carry out a promise made in Standing Committee that landowners would be given protection against the arbitrary carrying out of works on their land for the improvement of waterways under Clause 13. As the Clause then stood they had no right of objection in certain cases, and I think they were not really entitled to notice. However, this new Clause provides machinery by which owners of land on which these works are to be carried out are notified, can object, and can have their objections considered.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(APPLICATION TO ISLES OF SCILLY.)

(1) The Minister may, after consultation with the Council of the Isles of Scilly, by order provide for the application of this Act to the Isles of Scilly as if those Isles were a separate county; and any such order may provide for

the application of this Act to those Isles subject to such modifications, or to the exception of such Parts or provisions thereof, as may be specified in the order.

(2) The power to make orders conferred by this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This is the usual sort of provision by which the Bill can be made to operate in the Scilly Isles, either in whole or in part, at any time.

Clause read a Second time and added to the Bill.

Bill reported with Amendments; as amended (in the Standing Committee and on re-committal), considered.

New Clause.—(POWER OF MINISTER TO EXPEDITE PREPARATION OF MAPS AND STATEMENTS.)

(1) Where it appears to the Minister that circumstances exist such as are mentioned in the next following subsection and that by reason of those circumstances the preparation of a provisional map and statement under section thirty of this Act, or the preparation of a definitive map and statement under section thirty-two thereof, has been or is likely to be unduly delayed, the Minister, after consultation with the surveying authority, may direct the authority to prepare the provisional or definitive map and statement, as the case may be, within such time (not being less than three months from the date of the direction) as may be specified in the direction.

(2) The circumstances referred to in the last foregoing subsection are the following circumstances, that is to say—

(a) in the case of a provisional map and statement, that the matters for the time being outstanding are so numerous, or that any such matters are of such a character, as to prevent the completion within a reasonable time of the action required to be taken under section, twenty-nine of this Act, and
(b) in the case of a definitive map and statement, that by reason of the congestion of business at quarter sessions, or at any committee of quarter sessions to which applications under section thirty-one of this Act are referred, or by reason of the time taken or likely to be taken to dispose of any appeal under subsection (7) of the said section thirty-one, the determination of all applications under the said section thirty-one which, apart from this section, would have to be determined before the definitive map and statement can be prepared is not likely to be completed within a reasonable time.

(3) Where the Minister gives a direction under subsection (1) of this section as respects the preparation of a provisional map and statement, subsection (3) of section thirty of this Act shall have effect in relation to the preparation thereof with the following modifications, that is to say—

(a) the direction may require the surveying authority to disregard representations or objections made under section twenty-nine of this Act as respects any matter, or matters of any class, specified in the direction, being a matter or matters outstanding at the date of the direction; and
(b) subject to the provisions of the last foregoing paragraph, the surveying authority shall give effect to any representations or objections made with respect to matters outstanding at the date of the direction, being representations or objections as to anything omitted from the draft map and statement (other than a limitation or condition to which a right of way is alleged to be subject), and shall disregard all other representations or objections made with respect to matters outstanding at that date.

(4) Where the Minister gives a direction under subsection (1) of this section as respects the preparation of a definitive map and statement, subsection (2) of section thirty-two of this Act shall have effect in relation to the preparation thereof subject to the following modifications, that is to say—

(a) any way in respect of which an application under paragraph (a) or paragraph (c) of subsection (1) of section thirty-one of this Act has not been finally determined at the date of the direction shall be omitted from the definitive map and statement;
(b) any way in respect of which an application under paragraph (b) of the said subsection (1) has not been finally determined at the said date shall be shown on the definitive map as if the rights conferred on the public by the public right of way there-over were the rights specified in the application, and not the rights indicated in the provisional map and statement; and
(c) in the case of any way in respect of which an application under paragraph (d) of the said subsection (1) has not been finally determined at the said date, the definitive statement shall include a note of the limitations or conditions specified in the application and of the fact that the application has been made and has not been finally determined;

and subsection (2) of section thirty-three of this Act shall have effect, in relation to any review of the particulars contained in the definitive map and statement, as if the events therein mentioned included the final determination of any such application as is mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (c) of this subsection.

(5) The surveying authority shall furnish the Minister with such information, and produce to him for inspection such documents, as he may require for the purposes of this section.

(6) References in this section to matters outstanding at any time shall be construed as references to matters as to which representations

or objections have been made under section twenty-nine of this Act and have not been finally determined before that time.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
In the Committee stage representations were made that unless an obligation were put upon local authorities to make surveys of rights of way in their area, to prepare maps, and so on, there was no machinery for dealing with authorities that were dilatory, either through their own fault or through circumstances beyond their control. In particular it was argued that authorities had to wait before publishing definitive maps until the very last dispute had been disposed of, and that disputes between owners and the authority may be long and protracted.
This new Clause enables the Minister to provide that maps shall be published before disputes are dealt with and finally determined if he considers that a reasonable time has elapsed. Where proceedings are long delayed, apart from court proceedings, he can require the authority to publish those proceedings. The Clause provides both for the preliminary map and the definitive map. I think the House will find the arrangement satisfactory.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(ACCEPTANCE OF NEW PATHS CREATED BY DEDICATION.)

Section twenty-three of the Highway Act, 1835 (which provides that such highways as are therein mentioned shall not become repairable by the inhabitants at large unless certain conditions are complied with on the dedication thereof) shall apply to any public path dedicated after the commencement of this Act otherwise than in pursuance of a public path agreement.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This is a simple new Clause, the purpose of which is to protect local authorities against unsolicited gifts whereby they might become liable without their approval or agreement to carry out works of maintenance. Where there has been a


dedication, Section 23 of the Highway Act will remain operative except where the local authority has made an agreement to that effect.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(PROVISIONS AS TO DANGER AREAS.)

(1) The authority making an access agreement or order shall so delimit the land to which the agreement or order applies as to exclude all land which, by reason of anything done on other land contiguous or adjacent thereto, it appears to the authority expedient to exclude for the purpose of avoiding danger to the public or to persons employed on any of the said land.

(2) Where, while an access agreement or order is in force, the authority by whom the agreement or order was made are satisfied, as respects any land to which the agreement or order applies, that by reason of anything done or proposed to be done on that land or on other land contiguous or adjacent thereto it is expedient for the purpose aforesaid that the first-mentioned land should be excluded from the operation of the agreement or order, the authority shall vary the agreement or order so as to exclude that land.

(3) The fact that an access agreement is expressed to be irrevocable shall not prevent its variation in pursuance of the last foregoing subsection; and where the concurrence of any party to an access agreement other than the said authority, or of the successor in title to his interest, cannot be obtained to the variation of the agreement in pursuance of that subsection, the said authority may by order made with the approval of the Minister vary the agreement.

(4) A local planning authority shall have power, as respects any land to which subsection (1) of section seventy-two of this Act applies, to take such steps and carry out such work (including the erection and maintenance of fences or notices) as appear to them requisite for protecting the public from any source of danger on the land or on adjoining land.

(5) Without prejudice to the generality of the provisions of subsection (2) of section sixty-one of this Act, the application of section fifty-five thereof to any land shall not, in relation to any factory, magazine, store or premises already established, constitute the land an open place of resort for the public, or a public place, for the purposes of the Explosives Acts, 1875 and 1923, or any order made or licence granted thereunder.

(6) Notwithstanding anything in the said subsection (2) of section sixty-one of this Act, the application of the said section fifty-five to any land shall, in relation to any factory, magazine, store or premises subsequently established, constitute the land such a place as aforesaid for the purposes of the said Acts of any such order or licence.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This rather long Clause does two things. It collects together a number of provisions relating to danger areas on access land, and it makes certain slight Amendments.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(DEFAULT POWERS OF SECRETARY OF STATE AS TO CERTAIN BYELAWS.)

(1) If a local planning authority, when required by the Secretary of State to make, as respects land or a waterway to which the public are given access by an agreement or order, or in consequence of acquisition, under Part V of this Act, byelaws with respect to any of the matters with respect to which they are empowered by subsection (2) of section eighty-one of this Act to make byelaws, do not within three months after being so required comply with the requirement to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State, he may himself make byelaws in relation to the matters, and as respects the land or waterway, in question.

Provided that before making byelaws under this section as respects a National Park or area of outstanding natural beauty the Secretary of State shall consult with the Commission.

(2) Any byelaws made by the Secretary of State under this section shall have effect as if they had been made by the local planning authority and confirmed by the Secretary of State, and the provisions of this Act and of any enactment thereby applied shall have effect in relation to the byelaws accordingly.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This new Clause enables the Secretary of State, who is the person responsible for confirming byelaws under the Bill, to require any authority to make byelaws relating to access land. If the authority does not make the byelaws in accordance with the requirement within three months, he makes them himself. There was some discussion on this matter, particularly with the right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) on Committee, that the Home Secretary should, in default of anything else, at least be certain what local authority can be required to make byelaws relating to the conduct of the public on access land. This new Clause is designed very largely to meet these views.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(EPPING FOREST AND BURNHAM BEECHES.)

(1) The provisions of this Act mentioned in the next following subsection shall not apply to any of the lands under the regulation and management of the Corporation of London as Conservators of Epping Forest, or acquired by, and vested in, that Corporation under the Corporation of London (Open Spaces) Act, 1878, in the area known as Burnham Beeches.

(2) The said provisions are Part II of this Act, Part V thereof, and sections seventy-eight to eighty-four thereof.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
There was in Committee a great deal of feeling that the City Corporation should wholly or in part be exempt from the provisions of the Bill. I promised to consider the matter sympathetically, and I hope that this new Clause meets the point. I have not been able to go the whole way with the City Corporation, for I feel it may be necessary to exercise the powers of the Bill in relation to the provision of roads. This new Clause exempts the Corporation from Part II, Part V and from sections 78 to 84, which are the Clauses relating to areas of outstanding natural beauty.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this Clause does not go quite as far as I, for one, would have liked. I raised the matter in Committee, and I should therefore like to say "Thank you" to the Minister for having met us as far as he found it possible to do. I had the support of my hon. Friends behind me, and I must say, and acknowledge freely, the invaluable assistance of the hon. Member for Epping (Mrs. Manning), as well as of the hon. Member for East Leyton (Mr. Bechervaise). The Clause is an indication of the desire of the Minister to meet the points of substance which were raised, and I acknowledge with gratitude his consideration.

Mrs. Manning: I think you will allow me, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to say one word to the Minister. I think he has been generous in meeting us as far as he has gone. As the right hon. Gentleman opposite has just said, it is not entirely

all we wanted, but I shall be frank and say that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Town and Country Planning has gone further than I thought he would go. He did not have the support of the whole of the Committee. I thank him on behalf of my own constituents, who feel very deeply about this matter, and also on behalf of the people of the East End of London to whom these areas of outstanding natural beauty are their natural playground. I pay my tribute also to the Corporation of the City of London who have done such magnificent work in the past few years in looking after Epping Forest.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I should like to express my disappointment that the Minister has not seen fit to accept what I thought were the very convincing arguments which I advanced in the Standing Committee on this point. I would draw attention to the disproportionate consideration that the Government constantly give to the City of London. We had exactly the same state of affairs on the Representation of the People Bill, when it was not considered proper for the City of London to be associated with Shore-ditch and so, as a special sop to the City of London, we allowed them to amalgamate with the City of Westminster instead.
The same principle seems to have been acted upon by my right hon. Friend in this case. I cannot believe that if this beautiful and important tract of country had been owned by any other local authority, say West Ham, or the Urban District Council of Enfield, that we should have been showing the same consideration for them as we are doing because the local authority is the City of London. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mrs. Manning) was perfectly right in paying a tribute to the importance of this open space. All of us would deprecate anything which would damage that beautiful tract of country. Nevertheless, I cannot believe that there is anything in the Bill which, if it were applied to Epping Forest or Burnham Beeches, would do them any sort of harm. In fact, it is clear that it is extremely improbable that either Epping Forest or Burnham Beeches would ever be affected by the Bill, and if they were affected, I can hardly believe that it would be the fate worse than death which my hon.


Friend the Member for Epping obviously had in mind.
Another aspect of this Clause comes to light when we read it in relationship with Clause 91, which we shall be discussing later. That Clause applies the Bill to Crown land. We find there, in subsection (1), the following words:
The following provisions of this section shall have effect for applying certain provisions of this Act to Crown land, that is to say land an interest in which belongs to His Majesty in right of the Crown or the Duchy of Lancaster, or to the Duchy of Cornwall.
Then follow various categories of Crown land. In Subsection (2) we find these words:
Part II of this Act may be exercised as respects any interest in Crown land.
Farther on, we find, in Subsection (6)
Parts IV and V of this Act shall apply to Crown land.
It seems a most extraordinary state of affairs that we should be asking the House of Commons to exempt the City of London from the provisions of this Bill, and, by a special Clause, Clause 91, we should apply the Bill to land which belongs to and is in the possession of His Majesty. Further, while it seems extraordinary that we should be placing one local authority in a privileged position vis à vis other local authorities, it seems more extraordinary still to place it in a privileged position, vis à vis the Crown of this country.

Colonel Clarke: As the hon. Member for Epping (Mrs. Manning) has exhausted her right to speak, I hope she will not mind my saying a word in reply to the attack—I can call it nothing less than an attack—and the rather slighting references made against the City of London. I am a Freeman of the City—

Mrs. Manning: So am I.

Colonel Clarke: —and I cannot listen to them in silence. There is no question of undue influence by the City on the Minister, as has been suggested by the hon. Member for Heywood and Radcliffe (Mr. Anthony Greenwood); it is in consideration of the long record of the City's association with Epping Forest. About 70 years ago the City took steps to free the forest from the danger of being built over, and since then they have spent a great deal of money on it and taken a

great deal of trouble to keep it in the state in which it is now.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman say exactly how this Bill would damage Epping Forest if it were applied to it?

Colonel Clarke: As I have said in the case of other smaller forests, I believe that a great deal of the association and the character of the forest would be lost. If the management passed from the present verderers to a central body which has not the advantage of 70 years continuing knowledge of the development of the forest and the operation of long-term plans—certainly there would be an interruption—it would be a great deal to its disadvantage. Apart from that, there are in the Bill provisions for erecting places of refreshment and so on, which I am certain the commoners of Epping Forest would very much resent. There would be a considerable difference in its status if the forest came within the Bill. The rather slighting references to the City and the City's association with Epping Forest cannot be allowed to pass unrebuked.

Mr. Collins: I only rise because of the remarks of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke). He mentioned that he is a Freeman of the City, and he therefore feels unduly sensitive, apparently, about the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Radcliffe (Mr. Anthony Greenwood). I am not merely a Freeman of the City but was born in the City, and I am also a liveryman of a City company. I am not, therefore, likely to be unmindful of the rights of the City of London in this respect. It seems to me singularly inappropriate that one of the reasons why the hon. and gallant Gentleman supports the Clause is that the verderers and those who have long experience of Epping Forest might raise objections to the provision of places of refreshment and other amenities for the enjoyment of those who may wish to take their recreation and pleasure in the forest.

8.45 p.m.

Colonel Clarke: I said that the commoners would take exception, not the verderers. Verderers are responsible for looking after the forest and have long-term plans, but the commoners would object.

Mr. Collins: I think that is a reflection on the good sense and good taste of the National Parks Commission. I hope that wherever they have the administration of a national park they will have regard to the knowledge of commoners and others in many places where precisely the same conditions will exist, as, for example, on Exmoor, where there are rights of common and where the same kind of objection will be raised and we hope those objections will be considered.
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Radcliffe because I had always hoped that in this National Parks Bill we were doing our utmost to provide national park amenities and to make the beauties of the countryside as easily available as possible and as reasonably available as possible to the general public. I cannot see why Epping Forest should not have been just as available as any other similar area and why we should not trust the National Parks Commission in the same way as we are to trust them in regard to other areas of equal value, such as Exmoor, to the people who live there.

Mrs. Manning: I do not know to what my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Collins) is referring. There is no suggestion in the proposed new Clause that Epping Forest will not be as available as it has always been. This is a question of management; not of availability.

Mr. Collins: I am quite aware of the point raised by my hon. Friend, but the whole trend of the discussion has been that this Clause is welcome because of the special circumstances, and I say that the same claims could have been put forward by any hon. Member for any area in which he is interested. I could put forward as many claims for Exmoor, or The High Peak—

Mr. Speaker: Exmoor is not part of Burnham Beeches nor Epping Forest.

Clause read a Second time and added to the Bill.

New Clause.—(NATIONAL TRUST LAND.)

No power conferred by Part V or Part VI of this Act to acquire land compulsorily shall be exercisable in respect of land belonging to the National Trust which is held by the Trust inalienably.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
It might assist the House if I explained as clearly as I can the effect of this new Clause and what will be the position of inalienable lands held by the National Trust. They will remain subject to public path orders, orders for diversion, for closure of public paths and access orders. Those can be dealt with in the ordinary way. They will also be subject to compulsory purchase in respect of land required for accommodation, refreshments, meals, camping and so on, but not of land required in connection with the improvement of water ways and the provision of nature reserves. But, in the case of nature reserves there is the provision in Clause 18 which requires, first, that an attempt should be made to ensure that there is agreement. In the case of compulsory purchase, the National Trust will have the benefit of the Special Parliamentary Procedure. The Clause protects inalienable land from compulsory purchase for the purposes of access under Part V of the Bill and any of the purposes set out in Part VI of the Bill.
The House will see that I have made an attempt to meet the views of the National Trust in recognising their special position. Having carefully studied the many discussions we had in Committee, I think the real burden of the complaint against the proposals as far as the National Trust was concerned was that to make no mention of the special position of the National Trust in regard to inalienable land might affect the position of donors. I doubt whether it was ever seriously contended that the National Trust was in any danger as a result of the provisions of the Bill; it was really a question of prestige and status. I think that I have met that consideration by providing the National Trust with a Clause specially exempting their inalienable land from compulsory purchase in respect of two important Parts of this. Bill.
For the reasons which I gave in Committee, I feel that I cannot go further. There may quite reasonably be differences of opinion about the location of public paths or of land required for diversion of a public path or for access orders; there may equally be differences of opinion as to whether land belonging to the National Trust is suitable and essential for the purpose of providing some of the facilities which local authorities are under this Bill required to provide. I think that this new Clause is a reasonable compromise, and I hope that the House will accept it as such.

Mr. H. Strauss: Perhaps because for many years I have served on the Executive Committee of the National Trust I troubled the Minister as much as anybody on this point in Committee. I share his view that, in view of the discussion we had in Committee, it would be inappropriate to have much discussion now. The Minister has not gone the whole way I asked him to go, but he has gone some of the way. I am sure that in thus going some of the way to meet us he has acted wisely and in the public interest. Not many days ago I had the pleasure of thanking the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a recognition, in this year's Finance Bill, of the work of the National Trust. It is appropriate that we should have a corresponding, or nearly corresponding, recognition of its valuable work in the Clause which is now before us, and I thank the Minister for having gone thus far. I hope that the House will welcome the new Clause.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that the next four new Clauses which appear on the Order Paper all impose, or might impose, a charge, and are therefore out of Order. [(Welsh Parks Commission), (Signposts), (Compensation to statutory water undertakers) and (Width of public rights of way)].

New Clause.—(REGISTRATION OF ORDERS AND AGREEMENTS IN LOCAL LAND CHARGES REGISTER.)

(1) Forthwith after the making of

(a) an order designating an area as a National Park and an order carying the same under Part II of this Act,

(b) an agreement that land should be managed as a Nature Reserve under Part III of this Act,
(c) the making of a public path agreement under Part IV of this Act,
(d) the making of a public path order under Part IV of this Act,
(e) an access agreement under Part V of this Act,
(f) an access order under Part V of this Act,

and forthwith after the approval of proposals relating to a long-distance route under Part IV or this Act, such orders, agreements and proposals shall be registered in the manner provided under subsection (3) of this section in the register of local land charges by the proper officer of the council of each county borough or county district in which the land to which the order, agreement or proposals relate, or any part thereof is situated, or, if that land or any part thereof is situated in the administrative county of London, by the proper officer of the London County Council.

(2) It shall be the duty of the Minister or other authority forthwith after any order has been made to notify that fact to the proper officer of any council by whom the order is required to be registered as aforesaid and to furnish to him all information relating to the order requisite in that behalf.

(3) The power conferred by subsection (6) of section fifteen of the Land Charges Act, 1925, to make rules for giving effect to the provisions of that section shall be exercisable for giving effect to the provisions of this section.—[Mr. W. S. Morrison.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, "That the the Clause be read a Second time."
It has been the policy of the law in recent years to ensure that when land is burdened by any charge made upon it of a local character running with the land, that charge shall be entered in the local register so that any intending purchaser of the land can consult the register and see exactly what sort of land he is acquiring and to what burdens and easements the land is subject. We are proposing in this case to create a number of possible burdens on the land of which any intending purchaser should be made aware. In other words, he should be able to consult the local land register and there see at once what burdens have been placed on the land which he is proposing to purchase.
The law on this subject was codified in the Land Charges Act, 1925, but the difficulty about that Act is that it applies in the main to charges made by local authorities upon the land. We are here


dealing with a number of possible easements and burdens created not by the local authority directly but by order of the Minister. Therefore the wording of my proposed new Clause is designed to deal with that difficulty; that is to say, that where the Minister makes an order which adds to the burdens on the land, we seek to impose upon him the duty of informing the appropriate local officer so that the proper entry can be made in the local land register. There is a precedent for this. When the Agriculture Act, 1947, was going through the House, Section 12 of that Act made it possible for a supervision order to be put on the land, and it was decided by the House when that was under discussion that such a supervision order on the land ought to be entered in the local land register, even though the order is made by the Minister and not by the local authority or local committee.
The purpose of the Amendment, shortly, is to secure that if land is burdened by an easement or order a record should be kept of it so that anyone who purchases the land later shall do so with his eyes open. I think it would be the desire of all hon. Members to ensure that so far as possible, clarity and certainty in this matter shall prevail.

Mr. Silkin: While I am not wholly convinced of the importance of this Clause from the point of view of the protection of a purchaser, and while in any case this Clause is not wholly satisfactory, I think that no harm will arise from registration, and possibly some good will arise. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that any prudent purchaser would know of this sort of condition affecting the land, and in any case would send in, what I am sure he is familiar with, a requisition on title. That would bring out, or ought to bring out, anything of that kind. In case the purchaser overlooked it, he could buy a printed form of requisitions on title which I am sure would contain a requisition on this particular point. I do not think the matter is a serious one from the point of view of the prospective purchaser. Nevertheless I believe that the registration of charges and matters affecting the land is good, and if it can be done without too great difficulty I am in favour of it.
There is a certain number of difficulties about this new Clause. In the first place, it is thought that some of the matters which are included in it are already registered. It will want a certain amount of research, but, for example, I am advised that agreements with the Nature Conservancy for the management of land as nature reserves are registrable as land charges already under the Land Charges Act, 1925, and it would be unnecessary to make any further provision in that case. On the other hand, while provision is made for the registration of public path orders, there is no provision for diversion orders. Obviously, therefore, the new Clause requires to be carefully considered. That I am prepared to do, and to put down a suitable Amendment in another place.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: I am sure that the House heard with gratification that the Minister sees fit to accept the principle of this new Clause. Clearly, it is wise that a Bill such as this which affects the rights of property and the title of property should make clear within the statute itself what is the position in regard to matters from the point of view of registration in the register of local land charges. I hope that the Minister has learned something from the experience of the last major Act which he piloted through this Parliament which, of course, made very little provision for registration of land charges. As a result of that, the local land charges rules have been twice amended within the last few months, and they still leave certain matters in doubt.
There will be a considerable improvement in this Bill when the Minister has incorporated a revised version of the new Clause of my right hon. Friend. I hope that it will be clearly provided that these matters are registerable as local land charges, and that an intending purchaser will have constructive notice of them under, I think, Section 193 of the Law of Property Act. Anything which the Minister and the House are able to do to make the problems of conveyancing less difficult as a result of this Bill than they are already seen to be as a result of the Town and Country Planning Act, will be welcomed by all who are anxious to arrive at clarity in these matters.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I can only speak again by leave of the House. I think that the question could be further argued. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give sympathetic consideration to the principle involved. In view of what he has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2.—(CONSTITUTION OF COMMISSION.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 2, line 14, to leave out from "hold," to the end of line 15, and to insert:
and vacate office in accordance with the terms of the instrument under which they are appointed and, on vacating office, shall be eligible for reappointment,
The purpose of this Amendment is to provide that appointments to the Commission shall be made by instrument instead of by letter. This was urged upon me by my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Radcliffe (Mr. Anthony Greenwood), and I have great pleasure in satisfying him on the point.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 4.—(ANNUAL REPORT OF COMMISSION.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 2, line 40, to leave out from "day," to the end of line 46, and to insert:
(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) of this section, but subject to the provisions of the next following subsection, the report of the Commission for any period shall include a record of all questions with which the Commission have been concerned during that period and which appear to the Commission to be of general public interest, indicating the purport of any representations or recommendations made by the Commission with respect thereto, and the conclusions reached thereon.
Those who served on the Standing Committee will remember that a crisis arose on Clause 4 when the Government were defeated and were compelled to provide that in the annual report of the Commission there should be inserted a great amount of detail showing particulars of all dealings with Departments, authorities and statutory undertakers, however trivial and unimportant those dealings might be—and some of them might well be trivial and unimportant in the course of 12 months.
This Amendment is an endeavour to rectify the mistake of the Committee. It provides that the Commission shall include in their report a record of all questions with which the Commission have been concerned during the period which appear to them to be of general public interest. In fact, it seeks to treat the Commission as a serious and responsible body. It should not be treated as a body which has to be told every little thing which it must put into its annual report. I hope the House will accept the Amendment, which I think is reasonable, and which gives directions to the Commission so far as they ought to be given, but no further.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: The rebuff which the Government suffered in the Standing Committee appears to have had a salutary effect on the right hon. Gentleman, and, while this Amendment does not go all the way of those who supported the Amendment in Committee, I should myself regard it as on the whole a satisfactory compromise between what is possible and what is ideal, and I shall therefore support the right hon. Gentleman.

Mrs. Castle: As the reluctant architect of the Minister's downfall in Committee on this matter, I am glad to see him reinstated in harmony with us by this Amendment. He is accepting his defeat to a certain degree, and I welcome the signs of reform on the part of the Minister.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 5.—(NATIONAL PARKS.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 3, line 13, to leave out "community as a whole," and insert "public."
This is a drafting Amendment. There was a great deal of discussion on these words, and I think the word "public" is right.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: As I suggested the word "public" to the right hon. Gentleman. I shall support his Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 3, line 30, to leave out from "the," to end of line 32, and insert: "needs of agriculture and forestry."
The object of this Amendment is to require the National Parks Commission and the local planning authorities to have due regard to the needs of agriculture and forestry. Here again there was a great deal of discussion in Committee, when the Clause as originally drawn contained a number of phrases which I admit were a little uncertain in their implication and also confusing. I offered to take the matter back and see whether I could improve on it, and I believe that this is an improvement. There are two points. The first is that the words "as then established in the parks" have gone entirely, and there was also the point about whether we should refer to local industry or rural industry. On the whole, I have come to the conclusion that it is quite unnecessary to refer to these matters.
What we want to emphasise is that the authorities, in planning the area, should have regard to the needs of agriculture and forestry. Those are the outstanding and dominating questions which really determine the character of the national parks, and to incorporate a great many other forms of activity would simply make the whole thing meaningless. I hope that, while I wish to repeat what I said in the Committee that the intention is to maintain the general character of the national park areas, it is to be a living community and the life of the area will go on. Nevertheless, agriculture and forestry will always be the dominating forms of activity, and I think it right that this, and this alone, should be emphasised.

Colonel Clarke: I was glad to hear the Minister say that it has got to be a living community because the Clause as originally drafted implied that it should be static. Agriculture can never be static; obviously, to be static would be to die. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has altered the Clause in the way he has.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 6.—(DESIGNATION AND VARIATION OF NATIONAL PARKS.)

Amendment made: In page 4, line 17, leave out "of this section," and insert:
or subsection (5) of this section, as the case may be."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause 7.—(ARRANGEMENTS FOR ADMINIS- TRATION OF FUNCTIONS OF LOCAL PLANNING AUTHORITIES AS RESPECTS NATIONAL PARKS.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 4, line 34, to leave out "it is expedient so to do," and to insert:
by reason of any special circumstances it is expedient so to do for securing efficient administration in the park.
During the discussion in Committee there was a strong feeling that in the normal case where a national park was in the area of a number of authorities, the responsible planning authority should be a joint planning board rather than an advisory committee, which was the alternative referred to in the Bill. I hope I have made it clear that the normal position would be a joint board, and that an advisory committee would only be set up in special circumstances. It was contended that that was not clear in the Clause as it then stood, and I gave an undertaking to see if I could define more clearly what "special circumstances" were. This Amendment is the result. It provides that an advisory committee will only be set up if it is expedient so to do by reason of any special circumstances for securing the efficient administration of the park. In other words, the onus is on those wanting to set up an advisory committee to establish that that is a more efficient way of administration, and unless that can be shown then the joint board will be set up.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 4, line 36, to leave out from "shall," to end of line, and to insert:
not have effect unless and until the direction is revoked.
This Amendment fulfils an undertaking which I gave in Committee that it would be possible at any time, where an advisory committee had been set up and was not working satisfactorily, to appoint a joint board in its place.

Amendment agreed to.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 5, line 23, to leave out "quarter," and to insert "third."
It may be convenient if we discussed this Amendment and the following Amendment together. The effect of the two Amendments is that the proportion


of co-opted persons on the planning committees is increased from one-quarter to one-third but the Minister, if he find himself in difficulty in finding suitable persons to co-opt, may reduce the number to one-quarter.

Mr. Collins: I should like to take this opportunity to thank my right hon. Friend for these Amendments and for fulfilling the promise he made to my hon. Friends and myself in Committee. I should like to know from him whether, in his view, the only occasion on which the second Amendment would be used would be where it was found that there were not sufficient people of suitable quality or suitable qualifications for appointment.

Mr. Silkin: That will be the case.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 5, line 45, at end, insert:
Provided that if in any particular case the Minister, with the agreement of the Commission, so determines, this subsection shall have effect as if for the words 'one third' there were substituted the words 'one quarter'."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause 10.—(DUTY OF LOCAL PLANNING AUTHORITY TO FORMULATE, AND CARRY OUT, PROPOSALS FOR THE PURPOSES OF SECTION 5 (1).)

Amendments made: In page 7, line 13, after "shall," insert "(a)."

In page 7, In line 15, leave out from "Park," to "formulate," in line 16.—[Mr. Silkin.]

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 7, line 18, to leave out "calendar year," and to insert:
period between the notification of the proposals and the end of the next following financial year of the authority; and
(b) not later than such date as the Commission may determine in the said next following financial year and in each following financial year of the authority, formulate and notify to the Commission proposals as to what action needed as aforesaid should be taken in the financial year of the authority.
The purpose of this Amendment and of the next two Amendments is to provide that the proposals of the local authorities for administering the national parks should run for the financial year and not for the calendar year, and it also provides that the first report should not be at the beginning of the financial year next following the confirmation of the designation but the year after.

Mr. Molson: I rise only to deal with one small but rather curious point. A little change seems to have taken place here. I rather think this is the Amendment which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss), my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) and myself put down. On page 2963 of the Order Paper the Minister was good enough to agree that we had done something to help him in proposing an Amendment but now I find, at page 3022 of the Order Paper, that the Minister is taking all the credit for this Amendment to himself. I do not quite understand how that came about and I ask him how it is that these names were dropped. I take it that it is the same Amendment as that originally put down.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 7, line 21 after "under," insert "paragraph (b) of."

In page 7, In line 23 leave out "calendar year," and insert "financial year of the authority."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause 21.—(BYELAWS FOR PROTECTION OF NATURE RESERVES.)

Amendment made: In page 14, line 39, leave out from "board," to "or," in line 42, and insert "or other drainage authority."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause 27.—(SURVEYS OF PUBLIC PATHS, ETC., AND PREPARATION OF DRAFT MAPS AND STATEMENTS.)

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, in page 17, line 18, after "thereof," to insert:
as to the grounds upon which it is alleged that a right of way subsists over such path or other way.
The Clause with which this Amendment deals sets out the procedure to be followed by an authority in preparing what is to be the material for discussion in the future as to whether a right of way exists or not. I imagine myself that over England and Wales generally there will be little dispute over a great number of these rights of way, which are often well known to the inhabitants in this locality, and hallowed by usage over a great number of years. However, it is important not to shut one's eyes to the fact that there are occasionally disputes as to whether or not a right of way exists,


and in country life those disputes are frequently acrimonious. Depending, as they do very often, for evidence on the recollection of the oldest inhabitant, it is often difficult to be absolutely certain of what the facts are.
I am in a little difficulty with regard to this Amendment because I can see the counter argument to it—that it is, perhaps, asking a lot from a local authority to set out in every case in which it makes a map the grounds on which the right of way is alleged to exist, particularly in a case where there is no dispute about it. It may be said that it will delay matters, and really what I am trying to achieve is that, where there is a genuine dispute and it is alleged that a right of way exists, and someone disputes that honestly, then, if there is to be an argument about it, the person who disputes the existence of the right of way ought to be put in possession of a statement of the grounds on which it is asserted that the right of way exists.
This is only to bring this particular form of dispute into line with the practice of our jurisprudence as a whole—that the person charged with a crime is always provided with the evidence against him. Even in civil actions, before a case goes to trial there is an elaborate series of pleadings from both sides, the intention of which is—though it is not always fulfilled—that the ground on which the two sides are standing should be fully disclosed to their adversaries, so that when the matter goes up for trial all uncertainty should have been disposed of, a simple matter remaining for decision—at any rate, a relatively simple matter.
In this case, where a dispute about a right of way arises, and somebody over whose property the right of way is said to pass denies the fact, he ought not to be left in the dark to the last minute as to the ground on which the right of way is alleged to exist. I think the Amendment would be of advantage to everyone concerned, and that it would lead to a diminution of acrimony in the countryside.
I say I am in a difficulty about it, because there is an Amendment later which I have put down to Clause 9, in page 18, line 27. That Clause is really an appropriate Clause for dealing with representations and objections as to draft maps. Perhaps, it would have been more appropriate to have moved this

Amendment in there. I understand that that Amendment is not to be selected, so I put my arguments forward upon this Amendment, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman, in furtherance of that co-operative spirit which has characterised our discussion so far, whether he can make a general statement that he will endeavour to do something to meet the substance of the point which I have made.

Mr. Speaker: I take it that the right hon. Gentleman was also speaking to the next Amendment, in page 17, line 20, which I think is part of the same matter.

Mr. Morrison: I think, with respect, that a slightly different point is involved.

Mr. Silkin: I fully understand and sympathise with the difficulties of the right hon. Gentleman. As he spoke he both addressed himself to the Amendment and gave his own reasons for rejecting it, which I fully accept. However, I recognise that there is a point to be met. Whilst obviously it would be administratively unreasonable to ask the local authority to give the reasons for including every single right of way in their preliminary particulars, even in an abbreviated form, I think that where there is, as the right hon. Gentleman says, a bona fide dispute which is likely to go to the quarter sessions the owner of land ought to know very broadly on what grounds it is alleged that there is a right of way.
I do not agree that he ought to be informed fully; that would be too burdensome on the authority—certainly within anything like the seven days the right hon. Gentleman had in mind. Nevertheless, I think that there is a case for their being informed in a broad, general way as to whether the point relied on is dedication, or the oldest inhabitant, or prescription, or what sort of case there is. If the right hon. Gentleman will accept my assurance that between now and the next stage I shall consider what can be done along those lines and, if it is practicable, put something down, I shall be very grateful. I can promise him that it will get sympathetic consideration.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: In view of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, I gladly accept his assurance and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, in page 17, line 20, to leave out from "authority" to the end of line 21, and to insert:
are requisite for the proper information of the public and of the owner, lessee or occupier of the land over which a right of way is alleged to subsist.
As the Bill is drafted the authority is obliged to give certain information,
as in the opinion of the authority it is expedient to record in the statement.
We seek to substitute our proposed words for the present words:
it is expedient to record in the statement.

Mr. Silkin: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will take it that that will be looked at in the same context as the previous Amendment.

Mr. Morrison: In those circumstances I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 29.—(REPRESENTATIONS AND OBJECTIONS AS TO DRAFT MAPS AND STATEMENTS.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 18, line 23, to leave out "twenty-eight days" and to insert "three months."
This gives effect to a promise I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) in Committee. I hope that this will be some compensation to him for an earlier disappointment.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 31.—(DETERMINATION BY QUARTER SESSIONS OF DISPUTES AS TO PRO- VISIONAL MAPS AND STATEMENTS.)

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 22, line 14, at the end, to insert:
Provided that the court or committee shall not make a declaration under this subsection unless they are satisfied that every owner, lessee and occupier of any land which would be affected by the declaration has had an opportunity of appearing before them.
In Clause 31 there is provision for the courts or committee of quarter sessions to make a declaration affecting owners of land. It was pointed out by the hon. and learned Member for Exeter (Mr. Maude) that this declaration might affect the rights of owners of land who have no opportunity of appearing before the court

or committee. This Amendment is designed to meet that.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 34.—(SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS AS TO REVISION OF MAPS AND STATEMENTS.)

Amendments made: In page 25, line 44, leave out from "land," to second "a," in line 45, and insert
on which the map shows a public path, or.

In page 26, line 1, leave out "which," and insert
on which the path or road.

In page 26, In line 2, leave out "so."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause 41.—(COMPENSATION FOR COMPULSORY CREATION OF RIGHTS OF WAY.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move to leave out Clause 41.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I am a little in the dark as to what this is preparatory to, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would tell us.

Mr. Silkin: It is preparatory to Amendments to Clause 46. Clause 41 is being incorporated in Clause 46.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 42.—(DIVERSION OF PUBLIC PATHS.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 32, line 33, at the end, to insert:
(a) the diversion would have on public enjoyment of the path as a whole.
The purpose of this Amendment is that, when confirming an order for the diversion of a public path, the Minister shall have regard to the effect of public enjoyment of the path as a whole. That is an additional factor of which we must take account. As the Clause stood, we had to have regard merely to convenience, but it might even be that the alternative right of way, while more convenient, was ugly or unsatisfactory. While the public enjoyment is not a determining factor, it was felt that the Minister should have that in mind as one of the factors to take into consideration.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 32, line 40, leave out "(a) and (b)," and insert "(b) and (c)."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause 44.—(EXERCISE OF POWERS OF MAKING DIVERSION AND EXTINGUISH- MENT ORDERS.)

Amendment made: In page 34, line 19, leave out "and."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Mr. King: I beg to move, in page 34, line 22, at the end, to insert:
(b) by any local authority as respects a path, or part of a path, in a National Park, except after consultation with the Commission.
This Amendment gives effect to a pledge given to my hon. Friend the Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes) in Committee, and provides for consultation with the Commission before a diversion or extinguishment order is made in respect of a path in a national park.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. King: I beg to move, in page 35, line 34, at the end, to insert:
(6) A council proposing to make a diversion order such that the authority who will be the highway authority in respect of any part of the path after the diversion will be a different body from the existing highway authority in respect thereof shall, before making the order, notify the first-mentioned authority.
The Amendment deals with the machinery of diversion orders. It requires that an order-making authority making a diversion should notify the highway authority on whom the new liability for repair will fall.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 35, line 35, leave out "the last foregoing subsection," and insert:
subsection (5) of this section."—[Mr. King.]

Clause 45.—(SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS AS TO DIVERSION AND EXTINGUISH- MENT ORDERS.)

Mr. King: I beg to move, in page 36, line 14, at the end, to insert:
(4) A diversion order or extinguishment order shall not be made so as to extinguish a right of way over land on, over or under which there is any apparatus belonging to statutory undertakers unless the undertakers consent to the making of the order, and any such consent may be given subject to the condition that there are included in the order such provisions for the protection of the undertakers as they may reasonably require.
The consent of statutory undertakers to any such order shall not be unreasonably refused, and any question arising under this subsection

whether any requirement or refusal is reasonable shall be determined by the appropriate Minister.
The purpose of the Amendment is to give special protection to statutory undertakers who might be damaged by the making of a diversion order or an extinguishment order, or whose apparatus might suffer damage.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 46.—(COMPENSATION FOR DIVER- SION AND CLOSURE OF PUBLIC PATHS.)

Amendments made: In page 36, line 20, after "a," insert "public path order, a."

In page 36, In line 28, leave out "diversion order or extinguishment."

In page 36, In line 30, after "under," insert:
subsection (3) of section forty of this Act or.

In page 36, In line 34, leave out "that subsection," and insert:
the said subsection (3) or (5).

In page 36, In line 35, after second "the," insert "creation."

In page 36, In line 39, after second "a," insert "public path order or."—[Mr. King.]

Clause 48.—(LIABILITY FOR REPAIR OF NEW PUBLIC PATHS.)

Amendment made: In page 38, line 32, leave out "subsection (6)."—[Mr. King.]

Clause 52.—(RIGHTS OF WAY SUBJECT TO CONDITIONS FOR SECURING EFFICIENT USE OF AGRICULTURAL LAND.)

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, in page 40, line 32, to leave out from "husbandry," to the end of line 34, and to insert:
to carry out on the land any farming operation, and
(b) it is convenient in the course of that operation to disturb the surface of the path.
I suggest that we might take together this Amendment, the next one, in page 40, line 37, to leave out from "section" to the end of the line, and to insert:
so to disturb the surface of the path,
the next four, which are consequential Amendments, and the consequential Amendment in page 41, line 1. The point with which they are concerned is very short, although the Amendments are voluminous. They refer to Clause 52 which provides for the ploughing up of


paths in the interest of good husbandry and food production. It contains provisions for the restoration of the path as soon as may be. It occurred to my hon. Friends and myself that the Clause mentions only ploughing, whereas a number of other operations are requisite in modern agriculture. There is harrowing, by the disc harrow, work by the rotary cultivator, and other implements, all of which might be employed to the advantage of agriculture and food production, but might be excluded from the operation of the Clause because they are not used strictly for ploughing, which, I take it, is confined entirely to ploughing with the ploughshare.
The words we have tried to put in are wide enough to cover the case. We think it is convenient to use the phrase
disturb the surface of the path.
The whole thing is still limited to agricultural purposes. If the right hon. Gentleman has any better inclusive term, I shall be willing to consider it. I am sure that the Clause as it stands is too narrow to include all permissible agricultural operations, except the operation of ploughing.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: The Clause as drafted appears to carry with it the duty on the occupier of the land to make restitution of the path. If the Clause is broadened by the inclusion of a whole number of agricultural processes, some of which follow the others at intervals, it would appear that there would then be a duty on the occupier to restore the land on several occasions after a series of agricultural operations. Therefore, it can be said that if it will broaden the Clause in this way, some other form of words will have to be found to make it clear that the farmer has to restore the land only when a series of agricultural operations is concluded.

Mrs. Manning: Did the right hon. Gentleman mean a series of operations or the same operation with different methods of machinery?

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I meant one operation. In subsection (3) of the Clause there is an obligation to restore within a reasonable time after the operation is completed. That would probably preclude the matter to which the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes) has drawn our attention.

Mr. King: The right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison) put the case reasonably. There is no doubt that there is a case. Once we swallow the word "plough," it is obvious that it is too narrow to leave it at the word "plough." While it may be that "plough" is too narrow, it may equally be that the words suggested by the right hon. Gentleman are too wide. It should be possible between now and the next stage of the Bill for my right hon. Friend to find some form of words—possibly some list of farming operations—which we would be prepared to include rather than to use a generic term such as the right hon. Gentleman has in mind. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes), it is apparent that if one were to alter the first word "plough," one would have to make corresponding alterations in the way he suggests. Any alterations we make will not affect the interests of the societies in which he is interested.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I understand from the Parliamentary Secretary that this matter is to be looked at again in the light of what I have said and that it will be the endeavour of the Government to find some words, perhaps not so wide as mine, which include and describe all proper agricultural operations which might have the same effect on the path as ploughing does from the point of view of preventing access, and that steps will be taken to ensure that "agriculture" is not confined to the plough alone. On that understanding, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Collins: I beg to move, in pages 40, line 45, to leave out "within a reasonable time," and to insert "as soon as may be."
This Amendment is a small one and may seem to be a twist on a form of words. In view of the discussion that has taken place, I believe that it has rather greater weight than merely the substitution of one form of words for another. If land is ploughed and cultivated and sown with corn, there will still be a public right of way across that field. When the Minister looks at this matter, it will be necessary to provide


that the footpath or the right of way shall be restored and made useable, even though there is a crop there. The words "within a reasonable time" may mean a great deal of dispute and misunderstanding. Bearing in mind other matters that have been raised, I believe that the Minister will agree that the words "as soon as may be" are preferable.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: I beg to second the Amendment.

9.45 p.m.

Mr. King: I do not think there is any great difference between the two forms of wording. The second is, perhaps, a little more rapid and I fully accept the points made by my hon. Friend and am prepared to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Michael Astor: I suggest that the words should be "as soon as possible." "As soon as may be" is almost a facetious expression and almost like saying, "that is as may be," whereas "as soon as possible" is more concise and, I suggest, more grammatical.

Mr. C. Williams: I prefer the words in the Bill. I agree that "reasonable" is naturally distasteful to hon. Members opposite, but, in a matter such as this the much clearer words should be used and we should not try unnecessarily to hurry the returning of land in this respect. Realising that most hon. Members opposite are far removed from agriculture, I regret that the word "reasonable," which is simple, easy, understood by everyone and much more practicable in its application, should not be left in the Bill. I do not propose to divide against the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes) who has apparently moved the Government away from all forms of reasonableness, as was so easy once they strayed from the path of reasonableness. Nevertheless I say that it is not very wise nor helpful to agriculture.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 54.—(PROVISION FOR PUBLIC ACCESS TO OPEN COUNTRY.)

Mr. King: I beg to move, in page 42, line 20, to leave out "they are given access," and to insert:
the provisions of the next following section are applied.
This Amendment is not much more than a drafting Amendment. We suggest

that "they are given access," is open to dispute or doubt and it might be held that because they were given access persons would not be trespassers, whereas under Clause 55 (1) they could be trespassers. We think this is clearer.

Amendment agreed to.

Colonel Clarke: I beg to move, in page 42, line 33, to leave out "adjacent to" and to insert "adjoining."
It will be remembered that in Committee when discussing subsection (2) of Clause 54 we raised the point that we felt the definition of open country as applied to the sea coast and as provided in the original Bill was too vague. It read:
cliff or foreshore (including any bank, barrier, dune, beach, flat or other land adjacent to the foreshore).
That appeared rather muddled and not very easy to visualise. A lot of land such as mud flats may run far inland and is in no way really part of the shore. We understood the intention of the Bill was to include the seashore, but these words might include a part of the land which was not part of the seashore. I believe the Minister gave a promise that he would reconsider this matter, but, as nothing further has appeared on the Order Paper, we put down this Amendment largely in an exploratory way.
I suggest that "adjoining the foreshore" would be an improvement on "adjacent to the foreshore." I believe the intention was to include the shore in open country, but it should be the shore and not other pieces of land which may not be touching the shore. "Adjacent to" may mean with a strip of agricultural land between and I do not think that is the intention, but the intention is that people should be able to walk round the coast, if so minded, in open country. I believe that "adjacent to" will include a large area of mud flats, particularly in the Eastern counties, to walk upon which is of no profit to any one, and it should not be included as part of the shore.

Mr. Molson: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. Silkin: I admit that I promised on the Committee stage to look again of this Clause. I have done so, and I am satisfied that it is satisfactory and is not open to the objections which the hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead


(Colonel Clarke) fears. This is a definition of open country. It is not necessarily land to which access will be given—land will be made access land under a different operation—but it is land to which access may be given either by an access agreement or an access order. I would in the first place remind the hon. and gallant Member that the words:
or other land adjacent to the foreshore).
refers only to the type of land which has already been described, namely, "bank, barrier, dune, beach, flat …" and "or other land" cannot mean a different type of land altogether. I am told that it must mean, according to the laws of construction, land similar to one of those specified. Therefore, there can be no question of it being agricultural land or land of a different character.
To use the word "adjoining" would unnecessarily restrict what is in mind. There might be something between which would not technically be within this definition, but nevertheless it might be desirable to treat the whole area as one. The hon. and gallant Member may be reassured by the fact that in any case a good deal more has to be done to convert open country into access land, and if any such matters as he suggests arise they can always be pleaded in any objection that may be made to an access order. It would however be unnecessarily restrictive to substitute "adjoining" for "adjacent," and I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will not press this Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 55.—(RIGHTS OF PUBLIC WHERE ACCESS AGREEMENT OR ORDER IN FORCE.)

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: I beg to move, in page 43, line 13, at the end, to insert:
Provided that unless the Minister is satisfied that exceptional circumstances prevail, the land or any part of it shall not be excluded from the operation of the said subsection (1) on any public holiday, nor on any Saturday on Sunday immediately following or preceding a public holiday, nor for more than twelve consecutive days or a total of twenty days in any one year.
This is a very constructive proposal which will give my right hon. Friend another opportunity to show that spirit of magnanimity which has inspired his

utterances for the past three-quarters of an hour. Members will appreciate that the Clause as it stands provides that access agreements or orders may contain restrictions on public right of access during particular times. We take no exception to that in principle because provisions of that kind are clearly desirable. In the Bill itself it is provided, for example, in Clause 64, that the Minister of Agriculture shall be able to close access land in order to protect it from any danger of fire.
It may be necessary to close access land to protect rare flora or fauna, for example, the nesting of rare birds. There are people who, I believe, say that it is desirable to close access land during the lambing season. There are people, of whom I am not one, who believe in closing access land so that those who enjoy the sporting rights shall be able to take full advantage of them. But it is clear that if there are so many occasions on which access land can be closed the total period during the year when access land is closed may be considerable. Therefore, by hon. Friends and I have tabled this Amendment which would mean that, unless there were exceptional circumstances, the public would not be excluded from access land on any public holiday, or Saturday or Sunday immediately following or preceding a public holiday or for more than 12 consecutive days or for a total period of more than 20 days during the 12 months.
It will be appreciated that we have included the phrase about exceptional circumstances because we agree that land must be closed from time to time. Otherwise we believe that the very moderate periods we have suggested are reasonable under normal circumstances. In view of the fact that this Amendment is supported by many hundreds of thousands of people both young and old in various amenity organisations, and organisations like the Ramblers' Association and the Youth Hostels Association, I hope that my right hon. Friend will find it possible to accept it.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. Silkin: I am very sorry, but in spite of the tempting plea to me to be reasonable, or rather to continue to be reasonable, I cannot accept this Amend-


ment. In the first instance, no justification was given for limiting the period to 20 days. I do not know whether 20 days is a reasonable maximum or not, nor apparently does my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Radcliffe (Mr. Anthony Greenwood), because he said not one word of justification for it. Nor do I feel quite happy about excluding Saturdays or Sundays or public holidays.
There is a controversy at the present time as to whether it is necessary to exclude the public from land on account of lambing and breeding, and so on. I do not know that the argument is conclusive, but if there is any justification at all for excluding the public on those grounds, then there can be no guarantee that it would not be right to exclude them on Saturdays and Sundays or public holidays. I feel that we are somewhat in the dark about this, and that it would be wrong to legislate on the assumption that we know what is a reasonable period.
At an earlier stage I introduced an Amendment under which the Minister has to approve of every single access agreement which is made. It will be his business to satisfy himself that it is a reasonable agreement and that in all the circumstances it is giving the public a reasonable amount of access. What is reasonable may vary from time to time and one's conception of what is reasonable may vary as one gets more and more experienced. I think it is much wiser to leave it to the Minister to determine what is a reasonable agreement and what does give the public reasonable access.
Grouse shooting has been referred to as if it was an evil and that no facilities ought to be provided for it. I do not know whether it is or not, but it is certainly no part of the business of this Bill to determine that subject, and I am not in a position to do so.

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Greenwood: It was not at all implicit in my argument. The point I was expressing was that some makers of agreements might in fact think it was reasonable to exclude the public for certain periods, and that that, coupled with other periods, might mean that the land was closed for a considerable time.

Mr. Silkin: I think my hon. Friend went on to say that he himself did not approve of it. That may be, and there may be a

good many people in the House who disapprove of grouse shooting, possibly with some justification, but the fact remains that this Bill is not introduced to abolish grouse shooting. If it were, it ought to say so, and it ought to be referred in the long title. I am not prepared to abolish grouse shooting by implication.
I hope my hon. Friends will be satisfied with the assurance that it is the intention of this Bill to give to the public the maximum amount of access consistent with the due carrying out of farming operations without interference. It may be very difficult at times to balance the two, and I would say quite frankly that, in any case of doubt, the farming consideration must prevail. Subject to that, it may well be that the amount of time which is mentioned in the Amendment will turn out to be excessive even as a maximum in normal cases.
There is this further point that, when we refer to 20 days in any one year, there is always a tendency to regard that not only as a maximum but also as a minimum, and the local authorities might still feel that it was all right to give up to 20 days a year even when it was not necessary. Therefore, I appeal to my hon. Friends to leave the matter as it is now, so that the Minister may approve of each agreement, having regard to the various claims that may exist on different types of land.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: rose—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman can only speak by leave of the House. He has already seconded the Amendment, and has exhausted his right to speak.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: May I ask the leave of the House to make a few remarks on what the Minister has said? I would first, with the permission of the House, thank the Minister for the reasonable way in which he received the Amendment, and in particular for his comment that the number of days indicated in it is the kind of period which he thinks might normally be required in cases where access land is to be closed. In Committee, the Minister seemed to suggest months rather than days, judging by the interjections he made, and one good purpose of the Amendment has been to get his mind turned towards terms of days rather than months. Those of us who support this Amend-


ment do not do so because we are in any way desirous of eliminating grouse shooting by this means. I gather that a large number of sporting associations which have discussed the matter have accepted the view that 12 shooting days are fairly reasonable in a normal year.
What we desire to eliminate is the case of land being closed for one period for bird nesting, for another for lambing, and again for other purposes. As regards bird nesting, it is the case in a large number of grouse moors where access has been allowed that the subsequent bags have been very satisfactory to the sportsmen. As regards farming, my right hon. Friend recently accompanied a party of hon. Members through at any rate the fringes of the Lake District. Had he been able to penetrate its fastnesses a little further, he would have met a number of large-scale sheep farmers who have for many years allowed access on their land throughout the lambing period. It is their view that, when dogs are under proper control, there is no reason to prevent access to the land during the lambing season, and that it has no serious effect. Having got the Minister into the frame of mind in which he thinks in terms of days rather than months, I hope that my hon. Friend will withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. M. Philips Price: One point which has not been mentioned so far is forestry. If one ties oneself down to a definite figure of 20 days, trouble might be caused.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: That is covered by Clause 64.

Mr. Philips Price: The point should be borne in mind. If one ties oneself down to a period such as this, trouble might be caused if there is a long drought and it becomes necessary to keep the public away from a forest to avoid serious damage by fire.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: That is covered by Clause 64.

Mr. Philips Price: I do not know. I cannot see that provision is made for that. I am very glad that the Minister has refused to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Peter Roberts: I was glad to hear that the Minister does not support this Amendment. In

the vicinity of Sheffield there is some beautiful scenery and I am certain that my constituents like to go out, as they will be able to go under this Bill, to visit those areas. The Amendment might have the effect of causing serious damage to an activity which is almost becoming an industry in the agricultural parts of North Derbyshire. The hon. Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes) mentioned that it was possible that grouse might continue to thrive if continuous access was allowed to the moors. That is a fallacy. One of the effects of this Amendment would be to drive the birds away from that area of North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire. I know people in that area, farmers and others, who earn a great deal of money by assisting in this form of sport. Not only that, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer derives a great deal of money from grouse shooting, and the ratepayers in the area also benefit. This Amendment might do serious harm.

Mr. C. Williams: I do not happen to be interested in grouse shooting, but I know a certain amount about the care of sheep on mountain sides. The Minister is absolutely right on this point. Danger might be caused by a person walking about with a dog which is only nominally under control. Immense losses are incurred in various parts of Scotland because people wander around with dogs during lambing time. One can always find people who, if a dozen politicians bully them, will say almost anything. What they say carries no weight at all. The fact is that the Minister knows—and I hope that the Minister of Agriculture has helped him in this matter—that there must be a time in the lambing season when people are not allowed to wander about all over the place. Nine people out of ten would not do anything to cause damage, but a person might do harm quite innocently. I have said many things today which the Minister has not liked, but I try to be just, and on this occasion I say that he is absolutely right.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: In the hope that my right hon. Friend will be reasonable in this matter, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Molson: I beg to move, in page 43, line 24 at the end, to insert "and is unenclosed."
This Clause provides a definition of the land which is excepted, that is, land over which access orders cannot be made. Paragraph (a) provides that agricultural land shall be excepted land and that is not to include land which is only agricultural but land which:
affords rough grazing for livestock.
In The High Peak we have on the heights, the moors where the sheep graze—chiefly open heather—and then, as one comes down into the valleys, the heather gradually gives place to grass. There are small enclosed fields which have permanent grass growing and which are used for the pasturage of the sheep and the cattle. Some of those small fields are, in fact, the very centre of the hill farms in that area. The purpose of this Amendment is to provide that that rough permanent pasturage which is used for the sheep and the cattle, and which is enclosed, shall be excepted land within the meaning of the Bill.

Colonel Clarke: I beg to second the Amendment.
I feel that this definition requires a little clarification. I believe that as it stands:
agricultural land … by reason only that it affords rough grazing for livestock.
may be difficult to define, and if to that can be added the fact that the acid test is whether it can be enclosed or unenclosed, it might be a help. Some permanent pasturage is very rough, but it is very good grazing land, and it should not be included in the access land.

Mr. Silkin: I see the force of the point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke), namely, that there may be some difficulty in deciding whether a particular piece of land is excepted or not. I shall be quite willing to have another look at it to see whether some test could be devised so as to avoid any possibility of dispute. What seems to me to be quite clear is that that test cannot be whether the land is enclosed or not. That lays it much too open to any person deliberately to enclose land in order to bring it within the exception. But if the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) is content to accept an assurance that I will discuss this point with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture to see if we can discover some simple way of

deciding whether land ought to be excepted or not, which is capable of being put into an Act of Parliament, I shall certainly do so.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Turton: I think the right hon. Gentleman is a little bit wrong on this because nobody would purposely enclose a field in order to get it within the exception because it would cost far too much. Walling or hedging would cost something in the region of £200 or £300. What we are trying to deal with here is rough grazing land in hill farming areas. Under the Hill Farming Act passed by the present Government the enclosed land, which is of great value for lambing, is part of the hill farm.
As this Bill is now drafted that part of the farm will be subject to rights of access. It is the one part of the farm we want to keep exempt from rights of access. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will accept this Amendment in another place, if he cannot accept it here, because nobody will go to the expense of enclosing such land where it is not required. In the North of England we call it the hinter. It should not be subject to rights of access; it should be an integral part of the farm. It is, in fact, rough grazing because we take the definition of rough grazing as what an ordinary animal would eat, although what is rough grazing for the lowland type of sheep is good grazing for the hill sheep.

Mr. Silkin: I rise only to seek information. Admitting the fact that a farmer would not deliberately enclose a piece of land when it would not pay him to do so, would the hon. Member regard the mere expense of an enclosure as a satisfactory criterion?

Mr. Turton: I can only talk for my own part of the country, but the cost of maintenance of enclosures today is so great that no one would do it unless he wanted it for some farming purpose. I think that applies to all parts of the country because the cost of maintenance is very great. One maintains enclosures if one wants it for the lambing of one's hill sheep or to improve the grass of that enclosure. In both cases I do not want that land to be subject to rights of access. There is no possible objection to rights of access over unenclosed land although it is pastured by hill sheep. When it is


enclosed it is because it is of use for another purpose.

Mr. Wilmot: I hope the Minister will stick to his objection to this Amendment. The type of grazing about which we are talking would not be impaired or damaged in any way by the access which the Clause provides. To permit the possibility of enclosing on a large scale in a most unpleasant way—the cheapest way by slinging barbed wire around a field and thus bringing it within the Clause—would defeat the purpose of the Bill, and I hope the Minister will amend the Bill in some better way while preserving the substance.

Mr. Collins: I would add that there are in existence in many parts of the country stone walls running across the country around land which I am quite sure would be regarded as rough grazing. It could be argued that that is already enclosed land, but I am quite sure that no hon. Member would wish to excuse such land or regard it as enclosed. In addition to the point made about cheap and nasty fencing by the use of barbed wire, in many areas there is an increasing use of temporary enclosure by means of electric fences. I hope that when the Minister looks into this and decides to meet in some way the points raised he will look into it, above all, as to the definition of an enclosure. It is not merely a question of a definition of rough grazing but a question of what is the kind of fence or wall or barrier which will constitute an enclosure. I hope the Minister will bear that point in mind.

Mr. Molson: I hope that the House will permit me to say a few words upon this matter. In moving this Amendment I did not want to make it possible for entirely spurious enclosures to take place. What the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Collins) said about electric wire can run very close to the improvement provision of this Bill whereby any land can become excepted land when it is being used for agricultural purposes. I take it that if anyone went to the expense of putting up an electric fence it would be in order to use it for an agricultural purpose and, therefore, it would come within the protection of the Bill. I moved this Amendment at the request of the farmers of The High Peak, who are anxious that those particular small fields which are down

close to their farmhouses should receive protection. I am much obliged to the Minister for undertaking to try to devise a satisfactory form of words, and in view of the undertaking that he has given—it is a difficult task that he has undertaken—I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

10.22 p.m.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, in page 43, line 32, at the end, to insert:
or which is managed in accordance with the rules and practice of good forestry.
We had a long discussion on this subject in the Standing Committee. I do not propose to trouble the House at this late hour with a full account of the arguments for and against this proposition which we are putting forward. The position, to put it as shortly as I can, is as follows. Agricultural land is excepted on the grounds that the maintenance of agriculture and food production is in the public interest and that nothing must be done by this Bill to impair it. Forestry and the supply of timber is, equally with agriculture, in the public interest in its own sphere, but whereas the whole of agricultural land, with few exceptions, is excluded from access, only a very small fraction of the land devoted to forestry is, by the Bill as now drafted, so excluded. The exception in favour of forestry is to be found in this Clause 55 (5, c), and there it is described as:
land which is subject to a forestry dedication covenant entered into under the Forestry Act, 1947, or in respect of which advances have been made by the Forestry Commissioners under the Forestry Acts, 1919 to 1947.
The amount of forestry land which is covered by that definition in the Bill is a tiny fraction of the whole of the land which is devoted to forestry in this country. The noble Lord the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, speaking in another place, gave the figure, and said that 12,000 acres of woodlands have actually been dedicated out of a total of 2,800,000 acres of woodlands in private hands. So the fact is that this exception in favour of forestry, in the Bill as now drafted, affects a very tiny fraction of our most essential timber-growing land. In the Standing Committee we endeavoured to enlarge the matter by providing for an exception in the case of trees which were cultivated as a commercial crop. It


was a very difficult definition to justify when all the arguments against it had been presented. That is one of the advantages of a Committee stage.
However, I think that in all parts of the Committee the consensus of opinion was that the mere existence or non-existence of a dedication covenant did not really affect the merits of whether or not forestry land should be excluded from access. Undedicated trees are just as liable to burn as dedicated trees, and as much damage can be done to the national interest by the destruction of trees whether they be dedicated or not. Trees remain exactly the same whether dedicated or not, and are just as valuable to the nation.
So we have made this second attempt here to try to enlarge the scope of the protection of trees. The Minister, at the conclusion of our Debates upstairs, said:
All these considerations lead me to the conclusion that I ought to think again about this exception. If the hon. Member for Westmorland"—
it was my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Vane) who moved the Amendment upstairs—
is prepared to withdraw his Amendment I shall be very glad to look at the whole matter in the light of everything that has been said."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 24th May, 1949; c. 395.]
That was the way it was left, and we withdrew our Amendment. I should be very grateful to learn from the right hon. Gentleman the result of his cogitations on this matter. What I am suggesting is to except also land which is managed in accordance with the rules and practice of good forestry. There has been in agricultural leases for a long time the phrase "managed in accordance with the practice of good husbandry." That has become a well-known term of art in defining whether or not a farm is being properly run and properly farmed. In the case of forestry, I am bound to admit that I do not think the term we suggest has been in such general or long use as the term "good husbandry." Nevertheless, I think anyone would have no difficulty in distinguishing by the use of this test whether or not this was a woodland that was being run as a woodland for the production of timber and trees. That is the sort of land we wish to except. I have put the argument as shortly as I can and I leave it there.

Mr. Philips Price: Although I agree in general with the substance of the Amendment—that it is not right to separate dedicated land from undedicated land—I take a somewhat wider view of all this. I think that forest land ought not to be excluded from public access except under special conditions which should be laid down. Just now, when I was intervening on another Amendment, my hon. Friends tried to put me wise by saying that forest land was protected. Well, that is just what I do not want. I want the public to have access to the forests; but there must be rules and regulations, particularly in regard to protection from forest fires.
It is obviously unreasonable that there should be this distinction between dedicated land and undedicated land, and in that respect I am entirely in support of this Amendment. At the same time, I wish the Minister would do what he hinted he would do when we discussed this in Committee, and that is to review this whole matter and see whether forest land cannot be treated in the same way as agricultural land. In Committee I hinted that there was a possible way out. The Forestry Commission are now preparing a list of all productive forest land in England and Wales—and I think in Scotland, too, although I am not quite sure about that—a list which is eligible for dedication. The Commission hope that all this land will be dedicated, but they cannot be sure.
My suggestion is that this Clause should be so drafted as to make it possible for all productive forest land to come in under this provision, and for the public to have access to it subject to the various rules and regulations which will be hereinafter determined. It is most important that the public should have access to the forests, because there is a gross ignorance about forestry, particularly in England. It is not the same in Scotland; the Scots are much better informed about forestry and trees than the English. I think that all that would be got over if the public began to learn something about what the forests are and how they are run. I rather hope that we shall get something settled now on the Report stage. I hope that at least by the next stage my right hon. Friend will recast this part of the Clause concerning forestry.

10.30 p.m.

Colonel Clarke: Do I understand from the hon. Gentleman that at present all plantations and all forests are excluded from access because they have been paid for by Government grant? I think that under the Clause they would be excepted land. The Clause says:
land … in respect of which advances have been made by the Forestry Commissioners under the Forestry Acts, 1919 to 1947.
I think that covers all Forestry Commission land. It certainly seems a pity that some of the older forests, where there is little or no danger of fire, should not be available for access.
I am not clear whether copses, as apart from plantations, are open to access or not. In the definition of "open country" they appear to be left out, but the fact that plantations are specifically excluded makes it look as if copses should automatically be included, otherwise why make an exception of plantations that have been dedicated or paid for by forestry grants? I should like to know the position of copses. Then another question arises: if they are accessible land, how are we to get access to them? In this question of forestry there are a good many points that have not yet been touched, and if the Minister could clear them up before the Bill leaves the House, it would help many of us.

Mr. Wilmot: Would the right hon. Gentleman say a word on areas such as Fitfield Forest in Norfolk, in which the Forestry Commission have considerable influence and which have from ancient times been open to public access? It would be a great tragedy if the passage of this Bill should close to the public some of the open country which happily the Forestry Commission have brought into productive use in recent times and which would seem to exist side by side with public use without any great harm being done.

Mr. Silkin: Before I reply to the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison), I would like to assure my right hon. Friend there is nothing in this Bill which would require the Forestry Commission to discontinue the granting of access to the public in respect of land to which the public have previously had access. Once this Measure becomes law, I am sure the Forestry Commission will not suddenly close access to the public.
The right hon. Gentleman invited me to tell him the result of the cogitations that had taken place since the Committee stage, and I gladly do so. Let me say at once that I cannot justify subsection (5, c) as drawn. I think it must be wrong to draw as the dividing line between excepted forestry land and non-excepted forestry land the fact that a dedication agreement has been made. To that extent the right hon. Gentleman has made his case.
However, I am not entirely satisfied with the present Amendment. I am inclined to go rather further. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for the Fort of Dean (Mr. Philips Price) that, with certain exceptions in the case of young trees, copses and so on, there is no reason why the public should not have access. What I would like to do is to see whether I can devise a form of words which would except areas of forest where there is danger of fire. I am not quite certain at the moment what would be the test—whether it would be a test of age, or what other test could be applied. What I am groping for, if I may use the word, is some simple test which could be applied to forest land which could be accepted, and which would not—

Mr. Philips Price: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has quite got it right. The only thing that the foresters want is to see that there is no danger of fire at certain times of the year. It is not a question of the age of forests. Whether they are young or old is all the same. It is a question of whether, during a long period of drought, such as we have just had, there might be serious danger of fire in forests of all ages. It is merely a question of giving power to the authority to say there is this danger for a week or two.

Mr. Silkin: I do not dispute the great authority with which my hon. Friend speaks on these matters, but unfortunately there are others, who speak with almost equal authority, who take the view that it is a matter of age. I have to make up my mind, and I have to do that before the next stage of the Bill. I propose to try to do so by visiting certain forests and making such investigations as are open to me—not applying a practical test.

Colonel Haughton: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, it is almost impossible in this intimate dis-


cussion, to hear a single word which is being spoken.

Mr. Silkin: I am sorry that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is missing the fun. The short point of what I was saying was that I had promised to give consideration to this matter in the Committee stage. I feel that it is possible to go considerably further than we have gone in the Clause as it stands. I would like to have the opportunity to move something on the lines which I have indicated at a later stage. That is not quite what the right hon. Gentleman has in mind. It would be accepting far less than he has in mind, excepting from access only such areas as were definitely in danger of catching fire, and to which otherwise there could be access. But that is the kind of thing I have in mind. Unfortunately, I have not been able to devise an exact form of words at this stage.

Colonel Clarke: Before the Minister sits down, may I ask whether he is able at this stage to say anything about copses? I raised the question whether copses would be eligible for access or not.

Mr. Silkin: I am not an authority on copses, but I hope to be before the next stage of the Bill.

Mr. P. Roberts: Two things which have been said in this Debate worry me. One is the reference to the age of trees. Does that mean that it is considered that young trees would be free from fire?

Mr. Silkin: No.

Mrs. Manning: It is the other way round.

Mr. Roberts: The older ones, of 20, or 30 years, or some figure of that kind? But one danger has not been mentioned, and that is the danger of rabbits. I have had experience of putting down a young plantation in which there is no danger of fire, the trees being perhaps one year old. Someone walking through that plantation leaves open a few gates which have been carefully wired round; three or four rabbits get in, and the plantation disappears in three or four nights. It may be said that there is no danger from access to small plantations, but I hope that that point will be borne in mind.
The other thing which frightened me was the suggestion of the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Philips

Price) that at certain times there was danger of fire, and that the public should be told, if there were a drought for some weeks, that access would not be permitted in certain areas. I have a great deal of experience of forest fires in Norfolk, particularly with the Forestry Corn-mission areas in Norfolk, and it is an arduous task to put them out. Let me assure the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean that merely to say there will not be access for the next two weeks is not possible. Either the thing is barred altogether or not at all. It cannot be on and off for brief periods. People coming from long distances do not make themselves acquainted with the rules and regulations. If the Minister is considering the matter along those lines, I hope he will make it quite clear that for possibly six months in the Summer time access shall not be permitted, but that in the six Winter months it may be. The same rules should apply all over the country, and not merely change with the climatic conditions in one part. If that is done, it will not have any benefit at all.

Mr. Turton: My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke) asked whether subsection (5, c) included or excluded Forestry Commission land. As I read it, the provision excludes it, because the Commission is not receiving the advances under the Acts mentioned. Therefore, on that account, this is a bad definition. I am attracted by the Minister's suggestion that age should be the criterion, but I should have thought the right way of tackling this was to say that all plantations under the age of 30 shall be excepted land, and in plantations over the age of 30, where there have to be forestry operations, there should be right of access.
I do not agree with the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Philips Price) that there can be one week in and one week out. The only way it can be done is to have six months in and six months out, though I think it is far better to say, if the forest is of a certain age, that it will be excepted land. If it has standing timber in it, there is no reason why the public should not enjoy it, but do not let the House forget the very great loss that is being incurred on farms in forestry areas at the present time. I have large areas of Forestry Commission lands in my constituency, and continually a large amount


of good timber is destroyed through the careless habits of those who come from the towns and cities and set fire to that timber. I hope the Minister realises his responsibility in this matter. I am sorry that, although on the Committee stage he gave a very clear undertaking that he would look into this matter and produce an Amendment for the Report stage, he has entirely failed to do so, and it is not really any great consolation to say that he will leave it in this unsatisfactory state in the hope that in another place something better may be done.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I can only speak again by leave of the House. It is something if this discussion has driven the Minister off the too narrow definition that he has embodied in the Clause we are now considering. It is a difficult question, but I think there is a great deal in what my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) said, that age is perhaps a very important criterion with regard to this matter. There is something also in the observation that people should know which woods are open and which are not. I do not think there can be one week on and one week off. However, in view of the difficult problem, which I quite appreciate, and the Minister's assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 57.—(PROCEEDINGS CONSEQUENT ON REVIEW UNDER LAST FOREGOING SECTION.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 45, line 40, after "and," to insert:
where any representations are so made and not withdrawn shall either—

(a) cause a local inquiry to be held, or
(b) afford to the persons by whom the representations were made an opportunity of being heard by a person appointed by the Minister for the purpose;

and after considering the report of the person appointed to hold the inquiry or to hear representations the Minister.
Under the Bill as drawn, and as now amended, the local authorities have to make a survey of their areas within a certain period in order to decide to which part of the open country access should be afforded, but the Bill provides no means by which persons interested can make representations against the decisions of the Board. This Amendment enables such representations to be made and for

a local inquiry or hearing to take place if those making the appeal so desire.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: In the Amendment now before us and in the First Schedule, where it applies to orders designating national parks, public path orders, and other orders, there is parallel procedure. In one case there will be a local inquiry which will be in public, and, alternatively, there will not be a local inquiry in public, but a private hearing of representations by interested persons. I should like to ask my right hon. Friend for an assurance that here, and particularly under the First Schedule, when any point of considerable public interest is involved, a public local inquiry will be held. I hope that that will be the normal procedure, and that it will not be the procedure that, if somebody makes a representation, he will be heard in private so that those opposed to the representations will know nothing of what is going on until the matter is all over.

Mr. Silkin: It is the intention to hold a public local inquiry in any case where the objections are of public interest; but the procedure here is not designed by me. It is contained in previous legislation, and is designed to ensure that one does not have to go through the expense of the long procedure of a public inquiry when justice can be done by a hearing; that is the description—a "hearing." I would say, however, that where a hearing does take place, both sides will be heard. I assure my hon. Friend that there is no question of hearing one side only, and then making a decision, or of hearing both sides and then deciding separately. Both sides will be heard together, and where a local public inquiry is not considered necessary, there will be a hearing.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 58.—(NOTIFICATION TO MINISTER OF ACTION TAKEN FOR SECURING PUBLIC ACCESS.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 46, line 6, to leave out "two years," and to insert "one year."
The purpose of this Amendment is to reduce to one year the period in which local planning authorities are required, after having completed the review of access requirements, to take action to secure public access. Representations


have been made to me that, once they have decided the areas in which it is right that the public should have access, it is not necessary that there should be two years in which to acquire that access. I feel that the period could properly be reduced to one year, provided that the House is ready to accept the next Amendment enabling the Minister to give a longer period which may be necessary in a particular case. The two must go together. The two years was an absolute period and the one year is a discretionary period.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 46, line 7, after "section," to insert:
or within such longer period as the Minister may in any particular case allow.

Mr. P. Roberts: I see that this will depend on regulations which the Minister makes with regard to areas of authority, maps, the scale of maps, and so on. In other departments such as coal, gas, and electricity, we have had to wait a long time for regulations, and this has held up proceedings sometimes by as much as one year. The whole of this plan may be vitiated if the Minister is too slow. If he wishes for an earlier period, can he at least give an undertaking that the regulations will be forthcoming at sufficient speed to enable the authorities to carry out their powers?

Mr. Silkin: I speak again by leave of the House. Without going into details, I think the hon. Member is under a misconception, but I give the House the assurance that if local authorities are held up by reason of the lack of regulations, that will be regarded as a satisfactory reason for extending the period.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 46, line 12, after "prescribed," to insert:

"(a) the approximate extent of land in the area of any of the descriptions specified in subsection (2) of section fifty-four of this Act, and
(b)."

The purpose of this Amendment is to inform the public not only of the land to which it is proposed they should have access, but also of all available land to which access can be given. A request was made that the public should know not only what land they were allowed to go to, but what land they could not go

to, and this Amendment is moved to meet that request.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 59.—(ACCESS AGREEMENTS.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 46, line 29, to leave out from "A," to "whereby," in line 31, and to insert:
local planning authority may with the approval of the Minister make an access agreement with any person having an interest in land, being open country, in the area of the authority.
This Amendment makes access agreements subject to the Minister's approval. I gave an undertaking in Committee to that effect.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 60.—(ACCESS ORDERS.)

Amendment made: In page 47, line 29, leave out subsection (4).—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause 62.—(PROVISION OF MEANS OF ACCESS.)

Amendment made: In page 50, line 7, at end, insert:
(6) In this section the expression 'means of access,' in relation to land, means any opening in a wall, fence or hedge bounding the land or any part thereof, with or without a gate, stile or other works for regulating passage through the opening, any stairs or steps for enabling persons to enter on the land or any part thereof, or any bridge, stepping stone or other works for crossing a watercourse, ditch or bog on the land or adjoining the boundary thereof."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause 64.—(SUSPENSION OF PUBLIC ACCESS TO AVOID EXCEPTIONAL RISK OF FIRE.)

Amendment made: In page 51, line 22, leave out "by order."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 51, line 25, to leave out "order," and to insert "direction."
This Amendment enables the Minister of Agriculture to suspend by direction instead of by order public access to avoid exceptional risk of fire. This is a speedier method of achieving the purpose, and, in view of the possible urgency, I think it is right.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, in page 51, line 25, at the end to insert:
(2) The powers of the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries under this section shall be exercised by the county agricultural executive


committee for the county in which the land comprised in the access agreement or order is situated.
This Clause, as the Minister has pointed out, deals with the temporary suspension of access to land under conditions of extreme drought, or other reasons, which render the danger of fire far greater for the time being. The Minister has done something to speed up the procedure by substituting a direction for an order, and my Amendment has a similar purpose in view. It makes the local people, who are the agents of the Minister for this purpose, the judges of these exceptional conditions, how long they are likely to persist and how great or real the danger of fire is. I think that as these conditions gather themselves together rather suddenly, it is better to provide for a trustworthy local decision on the matter rather than risk the delay of referring everything to London and getting it back again.

Mr. King: I would not argue that the contention of the right hon. Gentleman is wholly incorrect: I would argue that it is incorrect to insert it in the Bill. As it stands, the power which we both desire to have resides with the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. He can, if he wishes, delegate that power to the agricultural executive committees. I should have thought that was sufficient. We must bear in mind the danger that there may be some members of the agricultural executive committees with some kind of personal interest in the matters with which they are dealing. I think it is better that this should reside in the hands of the Minister of Agriculture, who will pass it on to the agricultural executive committees.

Mr. P. Roberts: If the Government will not accept this Amendment and rely on the Minister of Agriculture rather than the local bodies, how does the hon. Gentleman visualise—

Mr. King: We are relying on the Minister.

Mr. Roberts: How is the Minister going to see that the direction is brought to the notice of the people on the spot? He is turning down a method of decentralisation, as far as I see it. If not, then why does he not accept the Amendment?

Mr. King: I think the Minister of Agriculture can use what means he

chooses. He could use the means which the hon. Member suggests, but I do not think it is necessary to make a rule to that effect.

Mr. Roberts: Whatever method he chooses, how is he to publicise it to those who want to make access to the land? It is no use having some written document when someone is going to come along in a motorcar and wants to go into a field. There must be something in writing showing that because of some direction an area which has been marked must not be entered. In America they have a good system; they put up maps. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has been to see these, but they give fire warnings, with a map which shows the roads from which people must not stray. The Ministry of Agriculture would have been the better people to deal with this, but if the Government do not accept the Amendment, how can they see that the arrangement is working? It is essential that there should be some method of showing the people who happen to be travelling along a road that, for some reasons, perhaps because of drought, they are not allowed to go where a week earlier they had been allowed to go.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: The Parliamentary Secretary, in his reply to my right hon. Friend, indicated that he thought that this Amendment was unnecessary because the Minister of Agriculture would have power to delegate to the county agricultural executive committees. Under what Section of what Statute has the Minister of Agriculture the power to delegate this particular function to a county agricultural executive committee? There is no provision in this Clause for any such power of delegation; the Clause merely provides that the Minister shall give directions. Before we pass from this point, I should like to be satisfied that the hon. Gentleman's statement was in fact quite correct, and that the Minister of Agriculture has power to delegate this particular function of giving directions to the county committees.

Mr. King: In reply to the hon. Member for Ecclesall (Mr. P. Roberts), I may say that I have been to America, and have seen the maps to which he referred. I agree that they are first-rate, but we must attribute to the Minister of Agriculture not only some experience in this


matter but also a certain degree of common sense. Personally, I find it hard to believe that he is not fit to be trusted with this responsibility, and that he will not execute it as well as it is executed in America.
With regard to the point raised by the hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller), I certainly could not give him offhand the precise Clause or Section he asks for. I can only give him an assurance that that power does exist, and I hope that assurance can be accepted.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: This is a new power the Minister is to have in this Clause. Surely there must be some provision for the Minister having power to delegate this particular power of giving directions? I am not very satisfied with the hon. Gentleman's mere assurance. Unless he can direct my attention to some other part of this Bill giving such a power of delegation, or, alternatively, say where it exists, I cannot find it easy to accept the view that there is a general power residing with the Minister of Agriculture to delegate to any agricultural executive committee any powers that this House may, in any legislation, give to the Minister of Agriculture.

Mr. King: Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be satisfied with my assurance. I have given it in all good faith, but I will certainly look into the matter, and if I find that the point he has made has any substance, we will do what we can to meet it.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 73.—(SUPPLEMENTARY POWERS OF LOCAL PLANNING AUTHORITIES AS RESPECTS PART V.)

Amendment made: In page 56, line 43, leave out subsection (1).—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause 82.—(WARDENS.)

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, in page 61, line 30, after "local," to insert "planning."
Clause 82 gives authority for the appointment of wardens, and the first words of the Clause are:—
A local authority may appoint such number of persons as may appear to the authority to be necessary or expedient to act as wardens ….
Seeing that hitherto the authorities, for the purpose of national parks and access,

have been local planning authorities, I put this Amendment down in order to make sure whether, in fact, it was the local planning authority or the local authority that was to appoint the wardens. "Local authority" has a different meaning from "local planning authority." The former is defined in the Local Government Act and includes all sorts of local authorities which are not planning authorities. Consequently, I have put down this Amendment in case there has been a mistake.

Mr. King: I appreciate that the point is one of importance, but I think the words "local authority", do in fact include the similar phrase "local planning authority," and therefore both are covered.

Amendment negatived.

Colonel Clarke: I beg to move in page 61, line 31, after "persons" to insert:
having a knowledge of country life and of flora and fauna.
The persons referred to, of course, are the wardens who were spoken of on the last Amendment. I believe that one of the main objectives of this Bill is to try to provide visitors from the towns with a better knowledge of country life, both for its own sake and also because, if that knowledge is acquired, there will be far less risk of friction in the national parks between the visitors and the old inhabitants.
I believe that the right channel for that instruction, if it can be managed, is through the wardens. If the wardens are able to give that instruction, it will enormously enhance their authority and enhance it in the best way. They are not required to be policemen in the ordinary sense. They want to guide people rather than to order them about. I believe that in no way can they gain the necessary authority better than by being able to supply visitors with the sort of information they want, which will be very largely in regard to the flora and fauna, plants and animals, in the national parks.
My hon. Friends and I are not wedded to these particular words, which I admit are rather cumbrous, but the Amendment to be made can include their sense. It may be said that we are asking too much and that if we can get wardens who are honest, sober, and reliable, it is rather too much to ask them also to have a know-


ledge of flora and fauna. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members opposite say "Hear, hear"; but I should like to point out that in another country it was quite customary for all keepers in very much the same position to have to pass an examination in elementary natural history before they got their jobs. In Austria, all the jaegers had to pass the examination in natural history to be able to recognise common birds, plants and so on. Apparently they had no difficulty in doing it. I think that in the course of a few months, the wardens, if they were, as I think they would be, born countrymen, would be able to learn what they were talking about.

Mr. P. Roberts: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. King: I do not want to quarrel with the ambitions of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. I would like the wardens to be honest, sober, and have a knowledge of flora and fauna, but I would hate to arrange a priority of these four qualities and embody that in the Bill, because it would be really impracticable. It is unwise to try to describe in a Statute a sort of person to whom one gives an appointment. We have all fairly clearly in our minds the hon. and gallant Gentleman's idea of the type of person we should appoint. I hope that, with that assurance, he will not seek to have this embodied in the Statute, for it would mean embodying in the Statute a long list of qualities, which would not be appropriate.

Colonel Clarke: I do not want a long list. I want a knowledge of flora and fauna. Apparently I am not going to get it, and therefore I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 91.—(CROWN LAND.)

Amendment made: In page 67, line 34, after the first "order" insert "diversion order, extinguishment order."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause 92.—(POWER TO AUTHORISE OTHER LOCAL AUTHORITIES TO ACT IN PLACE OF LOCAL PLANNING AUTHORITY.)

Mr. H. Strauss: I beg to move, in page 68, line 46, after "authority," to insert: "after consultation, in the case of a National Park, with the Commission."
I think it might be for the general convenience of the House to deal with all these Amendments to Clause 92 together. They are Amendments to which the standing committee on National Parks attach considerable importance. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling), who has particularly studied this subject, and the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeffington-Lodge) do not appear to be here.

Mr. Keeling: Oh, why?

Mr. Strauss: Well why—I am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that I nearly yielded to the temptation to address my hon. Friend. Had I seen him there nothing would have induced me to move this Amendment in his place. However, he will be able to supplement anything I omit. The matter which troubles those who have given thought to this subject is that, in all these powers of delegation given by Clause 92, no mention is made of the National Parks Commission, which seems to be very much concerned when we are dealing with land in national parks. The delegating authority is an authority on which there are persons nominated by the Minister after consultation with the Commission, but the authority to which the powers are delegated is not in that position. The Minister had every intention, at one point, of amending this Clause on the lines that we now suggest. When my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham sought to amend Clause 7 in Standing Committee, the Minister said that was not the proper place, but held out every hope of introducing an appropriate Amendment himself in what was then Clause 84, now numbered 92. It is true that when that Clause was reached in Committee the Minister had indicated that he had changed his mind, but I do not think there was sufficient reason for his change of mind.
One of the reasons on which he justifies the Clause as it stands is that it is only designed to deal with exceptional cases. He may call our attention to the words in line 41, page 68, "in any particular case," but those are not satisfactory words of limitation. There is no case that cannot be dealt with under those words. In the course of his argument at one stage, in the Standing Committee, the Minister said that he did not wish the Commission to be worried by


trifles, or words to that effect, and he gave the example of an invitation by the planning authority to a neighbouring county borough to build and pay for a hostel, and suggested that it might be mainly used by visitors from the borough and so would properly be a responsibility of that borough.
11.15 p.m.
But if the House will think of that case in a little more detail, they will see that permanent considerations of the greatest importance to the park are involved. The exact position of the hostel, its size, what is likely to be the effect of the decision about its size on the possible increased traffic on the road, possibly even an attempt to have the road widened—these and many other important planning considerations may be involved. Bearing these matters in mind, it is impossible for anyone to say that the Commission are not intimately concerned in this matter. That covers clearly the first two of these Amendments, which seek to insert on page 68, line 46, after "authority"
after consultation, in the case of a National Park, with the Commission,
and on page 69, line 5, after "authority"
and in the case of a National Park with the Commission.
These seem to me to be eminently reasonable Amendments and the Minister might grant them without injuring any cause which he has in mind at all.
The other question is the effect of arrangements already made under Section 34 of the Act of 1947. I suggest that where there has been a delegation of planning functions in connection with a National Park, that should come up for consideration by the Minister and should not be automatically continued. If the Minister, after consultation with the Commission, finds that that delegation is in order, of course, he can enable it to be continued by new regulations, but it certainly should come up for consideration. There should be no automatic continuance of delegation which has taken place before there was any National Park or any opportunity of consulting the Commission.

Mr. Keeling: I beg to second the Amendment.
I did rise in an attempt to forestall my hon. and learned Friend in moving the Amendment. I am very glad I was not successful in catching your eye, be-
cause my hon. and learned Friend has moved it much more efficiently than I could have done, and I cannot add very much to what he has said. In Committee I thought I had half persuaded the Minister of the merits of these points, and I am sorry to think that the subsequent correspondence I had with him should have dissuaded him from giving us any of them. The Minister has more than once declared himself to be a Commission man. He pooh-poohed any idea that he was trying to minimise the position of the National Parks Commission. I do not think that either the first two Amendments, which deal particularly with consultation with the Commission, or the second two, really amount to very much more than putting upon the Minister the duty to co-operate with the Commission. I think these are very reasonable provisions and I hope even now the Minister will agree to accept the Amendments either in this form or in some other form which he may introduce in another place.

Mr. King: The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) and the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) have put a cogent case, and I think it would be difficult to argue that there was nothing in what they have said. Indeed, I am sure my right hon. Friend thinks there is quite a lot, and I start by admitting that straight away. I think it would be true to say that this series of Amendments really falls into two. First, there is the demand that existing delegation schemes should be automatically terminated on the confirmation of a park order, and be replaced by others. That is the effect. I think that we ought to bear in mind that these delegation schemes were entered into under an Act recently passed, and that they have, in most cases, been recently confirmed by the Minister, and are, in fact, working well.
We do not want a local authority controlling an area to think that, because that area has become a national park, they are to be deprived of all their powers. I do not think that if that impression got abroad it would be helpful to the national parks, or to the National Parks Commission itself. I think that there we may legitimately draw a distinction between schemes


already arranged and working, and those which might have been entered into in the future.
Before I leave the older schemes, I would add that the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities gave an example, or had in mind, a borough where the planning powers were apparently being used badly, or might be used badly. He suggested that they might erect a form of structure which was not wanted in a national park. If that were to happen we must, I think, assume that the National Parks Commission would very quickly be aware of it. The Commission would make its views known to my right hon. Friend. There is no delegation scheme which is not terminable, and I have no doubt that in such circumstances my right hon. Friend would terminate such a scheme.
We come now to the second part of the effects of the Amendments, that the National Parks Commission should be consulted before the park authority delegate any powers under this Bill, or under the Act of 1947, in accordance with the terms of Clause 92. In the future this is a different issue, and there is, I think, great strength in what has been argued tonight. My right hon. Friend authorises me to say that he will have regard to that. While we do not want to accept any of these Amendments, because of the words in which they are enshrined, we do accept the principle in them, and we shall find suitable words, at a future stage, to meet the second half of these Amendments.

Mr. H. Strauss: I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. I think that there may be further arguments to address to him even on the matters where he has not bound himself to give further consideration. Having regard to what the hon. Gentleman has said, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 98.—(SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS AS TO COMPENSATION UNDER SS. 21, 41 AND 65.)

Amendment made: In page 74, line 12, leave out "forty-one," and insert "fortysix."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Clause 99.—(POWERS OF ENTRY.)

Amendment made: In page 75, line 11, after "order," insert "diversion order or extinguishment order."—[Mr. Silkin.]

First Schedule.—(PROVISIONS AS TO MAKING, CONFIRMATION, COMING INTO OPERATION AND VALIDITY OF CERTAIN INSTRUMENTS.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 79, line 34, at end, to insert:
Provided that in the case of a public path order or diversion order, if objection is made by statutory undertakers on the ground that the order provides for the creation of a public right of way over land covered by works used for the purposes of their undertaking or the curtilage of such land, and the objection is not withdrawn, the order shall be subject to special parliamentary procedure.
This provides for the special Parliamentary procedure where the land of statutory undertakers is proposed to be acquired or where a public right of way over land or an access order is made. In effect, it introduces a special Parliamentary procedure into these matters.

Mr. Molson: How is it that this Amendment is being moved? During the Committee stage I received two telegrams from statutory water undertakings, and the Minister told me that he had received some also. He very kindly agreed to receive representations from them on this subject. It would be useful to know whether this Amendment is now regarded by the undertakers as being satisfactory for the purpose of ensuring the safety of their undertakings.

Mr. Silkin: The hon. Member is speaking to the wrong Amendment. This Amendment applies the special Parliamentary procedure to statutory undertakers. The matter mentioned by the hon. Member arises on a later Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 79, line 47, at end, insert:
and, in the case of a public path order or diversion order, if objection is made by statutory undertakers on the ground that the order as modified would provide for the creation of a public right of way over land covered by works used for the purposes of their undertaking or the curtilage of such land, and the objection is not withdrawn, the order shall be subject to special parliamentary procedure."—[Mr. King.]

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 79, line 47, at end to insert:
(4) Where, in the case of an access order, it is represented by the persons carrying on a statutory undertaking, being a water undertaking, that any land comprised in the order as submitted to the Minister or in the draft order prepared by him, as the case may be (or, where notice of a proposed modification has been given under head (a) of the last foregoing sub-paragraph, any land to which the proposed modification relates), should be excluded from the operation of the order on the ground that by reason of—

(a) the proximity of the land to any reservoir used for the purposes of the undertaking, or
(b) any other physical factor affecting the flow of water from the land into any such reservoir,

the operation of section fifty-five of this Act as respects that land would be likely to involve danger to the purity of the water supply which could not be prevented by the taking of any reasonable measures, sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph, or head (c) of the last foregoing sub-paragraph, as the case may be, shall have effect in relation to that representation as if it provided for the consideration of the report therein referred to by the Minister and the Minister of Health acting jointly.
This Amendment provides, in effect, that, although there will be general access to gathering grounds, a water undertaker may make representations if in a particular case a grant of access to the public might affect the purity of the water. In such a case, these representations will be considered by the Minister of Health and the Minister of Town and Country Planning, but it will be for the Minister of Town and Country Planning to give the final decision. In the great majority of cases, where water is, in fact, purified, it is not contemplated that the grant of public access will affect the purity of that water. In that respect, the report of the sub-committee on gathering grounds is acceptable, and the water suppliers make no complaint. But there are cases where water is not treated, and where public access might possibly lead to damage being done. Therefore, we consider that it is well to err on the side of caution, and not give rise to public apprehension about the purity of water. It is, therefore, provided in such cases that the public will be excluded from sufficient distance of the water to prevent any possibility of pollution by public interference.

Mr. H. D. Hughes: I am glad to hear the Minister say that the main terms of

the gathering grounds committee report are accepted, and that the water undertakers have no objection. But one cannot congratulate the water authorities so far on carrying out their new principles because many are still restricting access to a far greater area than is recommended in the report. In the Amendment, there is reference to
any other physical factor affecting the flow of water from the land into any such reservoir,
and I think that such a wide and general phrase, causing alarm, is going much wider than anything in the report of the gathering grounds committee. That report said that there was no reason for restricting access providing pollution of reservoirs did not occur, but this wording makes it difficult to envisage what is meant. I should like the Minister to assure us that there is no intention, in the use of this phrase, to go beyond the general principles contained in the report of the gathering grounds committee.

Mr. Silkin: I do give that assurance, because it is not the intention of this Amendment to go beyond the recommendations of the gathering grounds committee report. Danger to the purity of water is always the governing factor, but it is not intended to regard as a danger to the purity of water any factors other than those contained in the report.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 80, line 5, leave out "the last foregoing sub-paragraph," and insert "sub-paragraph (3) of this paragraph."

In page 83, line 30, after "paragraph," insert "2 or."—[Mr. Silkin.]

Second Schedule.—(GENERAL RESTRIC- TIONS TO BE OBSERVED BY PERSONS HAVING ACCESS TO OPEN COUNTRY OR WATERWAYS BY VIRTUE OF PART V OF ACT.)

Mr. Turton: I beg to move: In page 84, line 23, to leave out sub-paragraph (h).
May I say at once that it is not my desire to see sub-paragraph (h) deleted and nothing put in its place. I raise this matter as a matter for my constituents who are deeply concerned about it. My constituency as, no doubt, many others of like notoriety, is famous in one part


for its great stretches of wild daffodils which are the delight not only of my constituents but of many hundreds of thousands of people who come to look at them. Under the existing law one cannot restrain people from picking wild daffodils and therefore destroying their beauty for other visitors. The wild daffodil is a flower which propagates by its seed and if one plucks a daffodil one loses future daffodils.
I took the opportunity of making a personal examination of what was happening a few months ago, and I can tell the House that when I arrived there I found a tradesman's van ensconced in the centre of the daffodil area. A commercial transaction was going on. They were getting the daffodils and loading up the van although all round the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and other societies locally interested had put up warning notices asking people to restrain these individuals from this selfish practice.
As I went further along the next 20 miles I found the road was strewn with bruised daffodils that had fallen from bicycles or other vehicles. Unless we can do something by this Measure that very great area of beauty, Farndale, will lose its beauty because Parliament has not done anything about it. I ask the Minister to apply his mind to this problem. We in the North Riding of Yorkshire have been the most forward county in our planning schemes. We were the first county in England to pass an interim planning scheme, yet we have failed to deal with this problem of the type of wild flower propagated by seed. Looking at sub-paragraph (h) I feel that the Minister has also failed to cope with the problem.
I ask the right hon. Gentleman to find, either here or in another place, a form of words to preserve, not only for my constituents but, what is more important, for the people of the whole of the north of England, a sight of beauty that has existed in the past and which, unless he takes action, will be lost for ever. I beg him to find a stronger form of words. If we stopped the picking of all wild flowers we would be creating unnecessary hardship. There is no harm in children picking daisies or buttercups but when we get commercial undertakings destroying

acres of daffodils, they are doing something which is not in the interest of national parks, and this part of my constituency is in the area of a national park.

Colonel Clarke: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. King: I am sure the whole House will agree with the spirit of what the hon. Gentleman has said. I am bound to say I do not find it easy to reply, but he has moved an Amendment in the opposite sense to what he wants done and this makes life a little confusing. I was a little puzzled when I saw the Amendment on the Order Paper, but I now understand that the hon. Gentleman only wants to draw attention to the matter. I would not claim that the Bill sets out to do away with all the troubles about which we have heard. I would claim however that it does not make them worse but makes them better. Here in the Second Schedule it makes a person who commits the sort of thing about which the hon. Gentleman complains a trespasser. He is that already. Further, under the Bill it is possible for by-laws to be created and there will be further penalties. I suggest, therefore, that in this Bill, having regard to its object, we have done all we can.

Mr. Turton: May I interrupt on one point? Sub-paragraph (h) does not deal with picking of the wild daffodil. It deals with the injury or removal or destruction of a plant. It is the destruction of the propagation which is not included in this paragraph.

Mr. King: Yes; I am convinced of that. I should like to have time to read through this Second Schedule, because from the words which the hon. Gentleman has quoted, it is an arguable point. If after further examination I find there is more in the point than I thought, we shall take steps to deal with it.

Mr. Turton: On that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: In page 84, line 28, at end, insert:
or to fasten it if any means of so doing is provided."—[Mr. King.]

[See Col. 1385, 20th July, 1949.]

Orders of the Day — CALVES (TRANSPORT CONDITIONS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Snow.]

11.43 p.m.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: I am dealing tonight, although it is very late, with the condition in which young calves are transported by rail in this country and the treatment which they receive. I must admit that when putting down this subject, I found it difficult to know to which Minister to address it. It concerns the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Food, the Minister of Transport, the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland. I am very glad to see that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland is the one chosen to represent all those Ministries. I am sorry to hear that the representative who might have been here from the Ministry of Food is sick.
This is a matter which must appeal to everybody, particularly animal lovers, which we all are; but it is also a subject on which one can wax sentimental and refuse to face facts, and I hope to avoid both those pitfalls. In the course of my Parliamentary duties I travel to and from Scotland twice a week, once each way, and I have frequent opportunities of seeing these calves and the conditions under which they are sent. Frequently one is awakened at Crewe by the cries of these animals, and at each stop through the night one hears the same cries as these terrified, hungry little creatures, most of them only a day or two in the world, are driven through the night.
The usual practice is for them to be tied or sewn up in sacking in which, in the first place, they are able to lie down comfortably, but in some cases they are put in the luggage van where there is no litter on the floor, and no foothold. While waiting on the platforms of different stations each passing engine and train reduces these creatures to a state of helpless terror which is pitiful in the extreme. Their struggles result in the sack getting twisted round their necks, or their legs getting crossed, so that they cannot lie down. In some cases broken legs also result. When I tell the House

that journeys are sometimes from as far-distant places as Somersetshire in England to Aberdeen in Scotland—

Mr. Keeling: Somerset?

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: I hope the hon. Gentleman will excuse an ignorant Scot using the expression "Somerset-shire," which I find in all the atlases of Great Britain.
I feel sure that Ministers and indeed the House will agree that there is something very far wrong in a country which prides itself on a love of animals, looks after the conditions in which they are kept, and claims a high standard of civilization, when newly-born calves make these journeys. In the very recent hot spell, the condition of these animals was truly dreadful.
I have taken this matter up with the Railway Executive and I reported one particular case where the most terrible cruelty was employed in handling these calves at changing stations. They took up the matter very courteously, as indeed they have treated all my correspondence on the subject; but we have to realise that there is much which requires looking into in the way these creatures are being handled. Rough handling in loading and unloading is very very common. In addition, there is teasing by small boys on the station platforms, and the barking of dogs. In fairness, I have knowledge also of a considerable number of cases of the most careful handling of these calves by porters.
But I think there is something very far wrong in a system which allows these creatures to be carried about the country in this way. The inspectors of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have drawn this matter to the attention of myself and other people. This journey from England takes 30 hours, and no milk is provided for the calves. The Railway Executive have given me their rules and regulations on the subject, and these make it perfectly clear that, as far as the rules are concerned, everything seems all right. They say, for instance, that in the absence of any specific instructions from the sender, any calf unaccompanied by the mother should be given milk warmed to blood heat to a quantity not exceeding one quart per calf. That is excellent on paper, but it


is not in many cases carried out; in many instances it is impracticable.
I cannot think that there is any justification whatsoever for sending these creatures on such long journeys. There are presumably, two categories; the calves may be for slaughter, in which case the Ministry of Food are responsible, or, if for rearing, the Ministry of Agriculture at the sending end, are responsible. In either case, I cannot really believe that it is necessary to send them such long distances as from Somerset or even the Midlands of England to Perth or Aberdeen, and that they could be sent on shorter journeys with a minimum of suffering and hardship to some market, or whatever it may be, nearer to the place from which they come. I doubt very much whether we can justify these long journeys, and I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us on that point.
But if they have to be sent on journeys at all, long or short, it is a moral duty on every one of us to see that every possible care is taken of them from start to finish of the journey, and that proper arrangements for food and water, where suitable—though, of course, they are not suitable for very young calves—are not only laid on but are carried out when the animals are on their journey. The Railway Executive have assured me that their rules are strict, and that stationmasters, yardmasters and everybody on the way has a duty laid upon him to see that these orders are carried out and that the vehicles, or the labels on the animals, state clearly when they should be fed, and when they have been fed. As I have said before, I think that on paper everything has been provided for, but I do not think in actual fact that it is being carried out.
It is quite enough to have gone into a luggage van and found these creatures tugging at one's coat or trouser leg in the effort, as they think, to get milk or some form of nourishment, and also to have seen the leather strap on the window of the guard's van sucked to a soft spongy substance by the little animals still striving their best to get some form of milk, as they think. One does not need to see that more than once to realise that these creatures do suffer a tremendous lot, as I think quite unnecessarily. Apart from feeding, there should

be far better provision for the actual protection of these creatures on the way. It does not require more than one sight of a struggling wild-eyed calf tied up in a sack to convince one that there is something very far wrong and of the need for action.
There is, and always will be, some element of suffering in the slaughter and conveyance of animals for slaughter for human food, but, accepting that there may be some element of that, it is the duty of everybody and of this House in particular, to see that suffering is reduced to an absolute minimum. I ask the Minister concerned, whether in Scotland or England, whether of Transport, of Agriculture, or of Food, to take action early in this matter, in order to put right what I think is a shameful blot on the good name of this country, which is famous all over the world for its devotion to animals and the high principles of civilisation.

11.54 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Thomas Fraser): None of us would complain that the hon. and gallant Member for Perth (Colonel Gomme-Duncan) has raised this matter tonight, even at such a late hour. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, who is perhaps the Minister most responsible in these matters, unfortunately was unable to be present himself to listen to what the hon. and gallant Gentleman had to say. It was his intention that the Parliamentary Secretary would, however, be here to listen to him and perhaps offer a word or two in reply, but unfortunately my hon. Friend is prevented from being here tonight through indisposition, and he has asked me if I would say a word or two on his behalf. The hon. and gallant Gentleman will know that under the provisions of the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, which applies to England and Wales—and there is a similar Act of 1912 applying to Scotland—there are provisions prohibiting the conveyance or carriage of any animal in such a manner or position as to cause that animal unnecessary suffering, and that the Minister of Agriculture has, under powers given by the Diseases of Animals Acts, made certain orders containing additional provisions governing the carriage of calves, both by railway and road vehicles.
The fact that orders have been made and Acts of Parliament passed is perhaps not enough, and it would be wrong of any of us to insist that no unnecessary suffering or hardship was caused to young animals. Most of us will have seen these calves in the sacks in the railway stations from time to time, and will have wondered whether these young animals could only be transported in that way, or indeed whether they have to be transported at all. I have made inquiries from time to time, and have been told that most farmers, and most people knowledgeable in the treatment and care of calves, take the view that very young calves are better transported in sacks than otherwise, that thereby they are protected from chills, and so on, that they might contract on the journey.
A good deal of care is taken to ensure that no unnecessary suffering is caused in the railway trucks. I do not doubt there are cases of rough handling in transit. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said he was aware of some cases of that sort, although he was also aware that there were porters who took the greatest care to see that there was no unnecessary suffering. He spoke about calves lying at Crewe, as well as other stations. Facilities for feeding are not available at all stations, but Crewe is one of the places, I believe, where such facilities do exist. Many of the animals about which the hon. and gallant Member spoke are too young to eat any solid food; the only thing they can have is milk, and many are too young to take milk out of a bucket and have to be hand-fed, and I believe that a little of that is done at Crewe. But whether a feed of that kind at Crewe to a young animal travelling all the way from Somerset to Aberdeen is enough, I do not know.
I should like to report to my right hon. Friend what the hon. and gallant Gentleman has said, to see whether there are any further steps we might take, in co-operation with the Railway Executive, to ensure that the least possible suffering is inflicted—or indeed no suffering at all, if it can be avoided—to these young animals while they are being transported. Most of the animals the hon. and gallant Member will have seen recently were being transported to be fed for beef in

other parts of the country, rather than for slaughter under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Food.
There was a time not long ago when large numbers of young calves were transported long distances to slaughter houses, but the Minister of Food sent out what I might call an injunction in January this year calculated to prevent the transporting of these very young animals long distances for slaughter. That injunction, together with the operation of the calf subsidy scheme, has reduced to the minimum, if it has not stopped altogether, the transport of very young calves long distances for slaughter. So I think we are concerned only with calves transported from the areas in which they are born and not being reared for beef, to beef-rearing parts of the country to be fed for slaughter some time later.
We have certain powers at the present moment. We appreciate that there may still be some unnecessary suffering caused to these animals. I should like to be allowed to report to my right hon. Friend what the hon. and gallant Gentleman has said. I assure the hon. Member that my right hon. Friend is not unsympathetic to taking all practical steps in the circumstances to deal with any unnecessary suffering. With reference to the present facilities at Crewe, my right hon. Friend will check up these and assure himself that they are being properly administered and that the necessary facilities are provided elsewhere where numbers of animals are passing through or being shifted from one truck to another for long journeys. I hope that with that assurance, the hon. and gallant Gentleman may care to leave the matter with my right hon. Friend.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. Would he particularly emphasise to his right hon. Friend the need to go into the question of reducing the actual length of journies, to see if the journey from A to B can be made shorter.

Mr. Fraser: I agree. One point I should perhaps have made is that my right hon. Friend would be disinclined to make any order under the Diseases of Animals Act providing that feeding facilities should be provided when animals are transported over a certain


distance, because distance is not a very good criterion. As the hon. and gallant Gentleman will know, having in mind our Scottish conditions, sometimes the distance between two points may be only 50 miles or less, but the animals may be a longer period in transit than it takes

to travel between Somerset and Aberdeenshire. I will report this point to my right hon. Friend.

Adjourned accordingly at Four Minutes past Twelve o'Clock midnight.